A plate-cracking epidemic

I've been rearranging things at home a bit recently.  My new dish soap comes in a round container, and when you do dishes you always end up with some wet, soapy stuff sliding down the detergent bottle (at least I do.)  So, I decided to use a small plate I made a while ago as a dish detergent bottle coaster on the counter. 

I used it all this week.  This morning, I looked and noticed this:

There are either poltergeists in my home breaking plates clean down the middle and laughing about it, or my friend Heather's cat, Walker, whom I'm cat-sitting for a few weeks must be playing games with the ceramics while I'm out of the house.

Walker staring at himself in the mirror

I will be tossing this one and just making another.  It was really an experiment in glazing when I first made it.  I was attempting to get a pretty purple color with a glaze called "Heaven's Gate."  It's a runny glaze, but when you do it right it turns purply.  I put a good enough amount around the edges of the plate to get it to turn out, but obviously only had a thin layer inside the plate, since that didn't change color. 

After this little plate I made my sister a bowl with the same color.  It turned out pretty well.  Now to figure out how to make a plate that doesn't crack down the middle.

Just a reminder:  the poll on the right side of the page here is up through today.  If you're a new visitor, or just a repeat who hasn't yet participated, list your vote over on the side.  Thanks...

Pots I'm pretty proud of

Unlike a lot of the things I've shown already in this space, I'd like to share some of the things I've made recently of which I'm particularly proud.  Since in the past I've seen others' work and really tried to get myself to the point that I could "make something just like that", it was hard for me to evaluate my work over time and see the positive in it. 

Now that I've been up to it for a while, though, I've started looking back.  I recently looked at some of the things I've purchased, and noticed that their stuff isn't all that great, either!  I can see the technical flaws in things and smile, knowing that I've done that, too, or that I know how I could have prevented that. 

That said, here are some things that I'm actually not embarassed to show as my own...with a few descriptions and 'fun facts' about each.

This is a ceramic bowl, made and glazed with my sister in mind.  It has two different glazes on it - a first-coat of "Heaven's Gate" with a top ring of "Royal Blue".  My sister loves purple, and I was trying to get her something in that color scheme.  The blue turned out brilliantly, but where it was thicker turned to what I like to call "pepto-purple" around the top.  It turns out some folks are fans of pepto.  Sister likes it, and I'm learning to more and more as I go back and revisit it.

A platter!  I started out with pottery focusing on small things.  Largely that was because everything you make as a beginner is with 1-1.5 pounds of clay, and after you fire it twice it's shrunk to almost unrecognizable proportions.  This semester, my instructor handed me a slice of a notepad's cardboard...11x3".  She told me to see try to make something 11" wide and 3" high out of 5-6 pounds of clay.  This platter was my first successful result.  It's a flat-based platter with a "Celadon" glaze (I do love earthy colors) and splatters of darker colors to add a little 'oomph'.  My father made a killer meatloaf in it, I hear.

This one isn't finished yet.  This is a picture of my first casserole in 'greenware' form.  It's been thrown, trimmed and handles have been slipped, scored and attached.  The clay has dried out, but it hasn't been fired.  A good impact or the scrape of a fingernail and it could be totally destroyed.  I would like to glaze it a la "Le Creuset", the wonderful French pottery.  I was thinking an obnoxious blue-green color on the outside and bright, glossy white on the inside.  Thoughts?  Post a comment and let me know what you think.