Project 1 - Pinch Pot Cut in Half
Planning: This was my very first pinch pot (that I was also going to have to cut in half), so I did not want to do anything special for it, and instead just have a basic look that I could use to see if it had effective thinness.
​
Description of Process: I started off with a circle that had been wedged. This circle was made by moving the slab of clay I had after wedging against the board in a circular motion on different parts of the clay until a circular shape was created. I then started moving my thumb into the clay and slowly hollowing it out. Once I was far enough along in the process I softly pressed the bottom of the cup against the board so that a flat bottom could be made. As seen in the photo, this process led to the bottom being much thinner than the rest of the cup, but it still ended up being an effective method that I refined to be used on other pinch pots. Once I was happy with the smoothness of everything, I used one of the wire tools with the green handles (I am unsure of the correct name of them) to cut it in half.
​
Reflection: Only one air pocket is present in the cross section of the clay shown, but that can still be improved upon so in the future I will wedge better and have thinner cross sections. A more apparent issue is that the thinness widely varies between the parts of the piece. The bottom is very thin, while the corners between the bottom and sides of the cup are almost as thick as my thumb. Additionally, the sides of the cup are not completely consistent, especially when comparing the top side in the top half of the cup to the bottom side in both halves of the cup. This made me realize that the corner between the side and base of the cup is very prone to becoming too thick, which I remembered on further pieces and looked out for when testing their thicknesses.\
No firing ticket is available as I did not fire or glaze this.
Project 2 - Pinch Pot Made Into Something Useful
Planning: Because I made this while still very new to making pinch pots, I decided against making anything particularly unique or hard to make and instead opted for just a simple pinch pot.
​
Description of Process: The process for this is the same as the pinch pot made above. I started off with a circle of clay that I made into a pinch pot shape. For the creation of this one, I wanted to be especially sure that I kept the sides thin. This is because the first one I made had sides that were too thick to be used. I paid special attention to the corner between the base and sides, as in the previous one that was especially an issue. I did not specifically try to make a cup or bowl or anything else for this project, as I only wanted to familiarize myself with the mechanics of pinch potting.
​
Reflection: The shape I started off with and the methods I used to make this led to a very even shape in terms of width vs height. Additionally, it is only straight up without any special features. Although it is good for the purpose of helping me learn more about how to pinch pot, more advanced techniques and attention to the shape created would be useful. In later pots, I experimented with a different starting shape and movement of the walls going up to create different styles of pots.
​
I did not fire this so no firing ticket is available.
Project 3 - Two Pinch Pots Put Together
Planning: I wanted to make two equally sized pinch pots and combine them together. Them being equally sized (at least at the top where they would be conjoined) is so that combining them would be easy. Because they would be equally sized and both cave in as seen in the photo, I would then add features of a snowman as the two pinch pots both appear to be the parts of a snowman.
​
Description of Process: The two pinch pots were made in the same method that has been described above. I specifically made them the same size and both have a turn inward at the top so that the appearance of a snowman can be created. The two pots had their tops scored and slipped to be combined together. To make the connection point between the two seamless I rubbed my finger perpendicular to the path connection point. After this I made an incident in the top for the eyes and put the eyeballs in, followed by eyebrows, a mouth and arms made using a simple hand-rolling method. I then made an opening on the top so that it could be fired without exploding. The photo shown is only a mock up of the features I wanted to add, and in a future revision that is not pictured I made the placement and form of the features better.
​
Reflection: To add to the snowman appearance I should have made each pinch pot more ball shaped. Additionally, I should have smoothed out each pinch pot prior to combining them, as they did not end up being as smooth as I would like. I also wish I used smaller sized pinch pots, because the proportions of the snowman look off due to the size of them. A project that involves two straight pinch pots could be fun to do in the future, because that would require much more attention to making the two truly like one pot and not two combined. Despite this, I am still happy with what I did and the snowman looks quite silly.
​
No firing ticket available as I did not fire this.
Project 4 - Pinch Pot With Fitted Lid
Planning: Most photos of pinch pots with fitted lids I found online had a lid that was straight and did not go over the pot to create more of a seal. I thought it would be interesting so I decided to experiment by making a lid that was shaped to go over the pot as seen in the photo.
​
Description of Process: The pinch pot was made like any other, just with the goal of making an especially consistent top so that the lid could fit easily. The lid was made by pin-rolling clay and then cutting out a circle slightly larger than the opening of a pot using a plastic lid found outside and a felting knife. The lid was then put onto the top of the pot and the sides were moved down to create a seal. I made sure not to push the lid down too hard so that I could take it off prior to it being fired. I needed some method of pulling the lid off once fired so I added a handle on top in the form of a circle. This then gave me the idea to make it into an acorn, so I indicated the bottom to make more of an acorn appearance and tried to make it longer, but that wasn't as easy.
​
Reflection: If I were to recreate this I'd go with the plan to make it into an acorn, as the shape of the pot doesn't look like an acorn as much as I wish it did. I'd make the bottom indented more and the overall shape of the pot longer. I also should have smoothed out the lid more and made the top more circular. Acorns usually have a stem at the top, but I don't think that would work to take the lid off as it might easily break, so I decided to keep the ball instead, but I could in the future try a very well-scored/slipped stem and hope it doesn't break. Aside from the lack of acorn shape, the pinch pot itself is good and I can definitely see improvement in getting the sides thinner and smoother.
​
No firing ticket is available as I did not fire this.
Project 5 - Small Animal Sculpture
Planning: I was not sure what type of animal I wanted to make nor did I have any idea how I would go about making it. Because of this, the obvious option was to follow the instructions of the frog on the wall.
​
Description of Process: I started with a very simple pinch pot which took a couple of times to make due to it always not being frog-shaped, but I eventually got to one that was appectable. After that, I rolled out clay to make the back legs. This was hard to do because too thick of a roll may not be able to be fired, and I found cracks pretty
easily when trying to mold it into the shape of the legs. I could not go for thinner legs because they would look out of proportion for the frog. But after a couple of tries and manipulating the legs very slowly, I was able to find the right kind of shape. I made sure to make both legs prior to molding one so that they were the same size. After this, I made the front legs which were much easier to do. Then I made two small indents in the front to put the eyes in without making it just look like they are popping out. I was not sure what else to do in terms of facial expressions because frogs don't really have visible mouths or noses like a human would.
​
Reflection: I am mostly happy with the legs, but the main thing I wish I had changed was the body. The shape is very circular and round, rather than lanky like a real frog would be. If I remake this (which I may do because I had a really fun time doing it) I would make sure to make the pinch pot more in the shape of an actual frog. I also wish I pushed back the bottom of the front so that it looked like the frog had a neck instead of just a blob. But even with this, I think it turned out silly and cartoonish looking which I think adds to the charm of the piece.
​
Firing ticket was made before I realized I had to glaze the underside of the piece too.
Project 6 - Historically Inspired Peice
Planning: This piece is based on the many ceramics pots I saw with the specific shape and with patterns on then I saw when looking at very old ceramics pots. I tried to replicate this in my own piece.
​
Description of Process: I started with a normal pinch pot that was manipulated to form an slope outward until about 2/3 up and then a sharp turn inward. This was done by slowly expanding the width of the pot from the top while still keeping the inside the same. Then I moved the top inward to form the given shape. After this I made some simple patterns on the pot based around patterns I had seen online of similar pots. I originally tried to go for a spiral pattern but I found this to be too hard to do given my lack of experience in normal art and consistency with drawing the spirals as a result, leading to the much more simple pattern being created.
​
Reflection: This is the first time I really tried to make a pot into a more 3D and curved shape, which led to a lot of cracking at the top because I was inexperienced. The cracks were mostly repaired but a few smaller ones can still be seen, as the photo provided was a work in progress photo for my daily work photos. I also wish I went with a different pattern, as this one looks very basic and boring.
Project 7 - Relief Tile
Planning: On the way to school that day I was thinking about chemistry a lot (I am a nerd) so when thinking of ideas for the relief tile I had the idea of doing something related to that. A very universal symbol in chemistry is the structure of benzene, which comes up all over organic chemistry and is found in thousands of chemical structures, including many found within our own bodies. Because of this, I decided to make that structure.
​
Description of Process: I started off by pin-rolling clay until a thin slab was created. I then cut out a square shape using a felting knife. Then I created the hexagon structure of benzene by removing the clay around it, making the hexagon be at a higher level than the rest of the clay. The properties of benzene that make it important are its double-bonded carbon atoms. Each vertex of the hexagon is a carbon atom, and in a drawing of the structure, lines would be used to connect each carbon. For a double bond, this is 2 lines as opposed to one, but I was unsure how to do this in a clay format like this. However, an alternative method of drawing benzene is with a circle around the hexagon to show how the 3 double bonds are actually in a pi-bond that has the location of each double bond continuously changing. This is easier to decipher so I made a circle inside of the hexagon. I finally made the entire piece a hexagon because it looked cooler.
​
Reflection: I am happy with how this turned out overall. I wish there was a better way of showing the pi bonds of benzene in this format, but I think to a chemistry nerd or to someone this is explained to it makes sense. The piece being successful is as a result of this being very easy to make, even if it does have significant meaning to me due to how much I like biochemistry. In the future I may try to make a more complex chemical structure.
