My students mighty “feats” with feet

My students mighty “feats” with feet

My students mighty “feats” with feet

Believe it or not, Session Two is already over at sfclayworks and we are currently in the second week of Session Three .

Time has been flying by this year, with the new studio, job, and added responsibilities in my life. Since our last firing I have not had much time to make new work, but hope to get back into a groove very soon.

Thought I would share some of my students creations, as they have been very busy.

Session One had many of us trying to get comfortable in our new space, (including myself) at least that was the excuse I got from many students as to why very few of them followed through on their first project. Our first projects focus was “change”, a reference to the big changes we all had with the closure of our last home, “The Clay Studio.”

The students who did the project did an excellent job of challenging themselves and I am always happy when they stretch and try something new.

During Session Two I got a bigger response to the project focused on the foot of our pots. Remembering a couple of old Studio Potter magazines that had a focus on the parts of a pot, I had the students put their attention on the choices they make when finishing off their work. Too often when we are learning the craft or I suppose I should say the art of pottery making, we settle in to the old standard foot we learned in our beginning pottery class.  Now it was time for all of them to start making conscious decisions as to why they do what they do! They were asked to make five similar pieces and make a different foot on each piece.

I am happy to report, they came up with some winners!

Now they need to keep these new ideas in their arsenal of ideas for future works.  More importantly they need to keep the concept of experimentation within a basic form as an excellent tool for them to use as they move forward in the big wide world of clay.

As I always tell them, it is through the “failed” works that we learn the most, something I often remind myself when I work on coming up with new ideas.

Below are a few examples of what they came up with, and this session our new project is lips…..I look forward to their creative exploits ! Think some of the pots below might be community workers, but it gives a nice balance of ideas.

 

Five very different feet, by sfclayworks own Saba

Three nice mug variations

rounded foot

triball-foot (hee, hee)

Bow foot- Will it take the heat of firing?

bottom view of angled foot

 

side view of angled foot

 

cut out foot

love the swirl! attention to detail!

the no foot foot

creative foot

 

About the Author