Wax On – Wax Off
New Squared Mugs
Err, um…ahem, I seem to be having some issues – not the personal sort either, though I do have a few of those as well. But, this post is not about THOSE kinds of issues, although if I wax poetic all scholarly like, both could be related.
I find that I’m really rusty and out of practice as I begin the process of becoming reacquainted with clay. This is not a happy state of being for me since I want to exit the shoot hootin’ and a hollerin’ whipping out pottery left and right, filling my shelves to capacity with fluid ease. Instead, I’m ending up with some wonky ware with ugly handles. Sure, I’d love to just write about my success stories and make it look as though I live in pottery nirvana, but it doesn’t always work like that.
Anyone seen the new Karate Kid movie – or remember the original? I’ve decided that I need my own “wax on, wax off” (original) or “jacket off, jacket on the peg, drop jacket, jacket on” (new) kind of moment. Muscle memory is important when it comes to many different physical tasks including crafting pottery efficiently and with as little frustration possible.
I think I need to devote a day (or at least a couple 25 pound bags of clay) to repetitively throwing the same object/shape on the wheel till they begin to look fairly uniform. Then, I want to use the same approach to pulling handles, ‘cuz frankly mine stink! Maybe then I’ll have my aha moment…similar to Daniel san and I can stop fighting the clay. In all honesty, I should recycle the mugs in the photo above – they’re not worth keeping. It’s a good lesson to learn that everything we make is not precious and should be returned to the state from whence it began.
AND – really, square mugs? Not really practical when I think about the mechanics of drinking.
Pulling Handles for Handmade Pottery Mugs
One of my least favorite tasks to do in the studio is to pull handles for mugs. If you’re not a clay person and have never done it before, it’s a bit like I would imagine milking a cow would be like. To start the process, I generally make a “carrot” sized length of clay. I also make more than I will actually use since it normally takes me 1 or 2 tries before I get into the swing of things.
Sunday evening, I ventured into the garagio since it was relatively warm inside (the kiln was running) and my 4 thrown mug bodies were drying to the point where it was now or never. For motivation, I took a little nip with me (in a handmade tumbler of course) and turned on the radio.
Voilà ! After maybe 30 minutes of carrot making and pulling, I have 7 freshly pulled handles that I attached to a cement board to set up. In the mean time, I began trimming the bottom of the mugs.
After all was said and done, I breathed a sigh of relief after all the handles are chosen and attached to the mug bodies. I’m trying something a little different this time. When I went in search of my bottle of liquid wax – so that I could paint a little wax around the handles to prevent cracking, I found a frozen bottle of wax. I had to laugh because on the outside of the container, it reads, “DO NOT FREEZE”. Too late…. I tried defrosting the wax in the microwave to no avail when I remember the can of shellac (which is not frozen) that is sitting on one of my shelves. I reckon that the same principle of slowing down the drying between the joints where the handle meets the mug will apply to the use of shellac instead of wax. Time will tell. The mugs are currently drying inside the house as I write this.
Meanwhile, my week looks manageable. I teach my after school clay class this afternoon and am only scheduled to substitute teach one day this week. I hope to use some of this time to make some more work.
Have a good week everyone,
~Cynthia
