Pushing It, or, Fat Lips

I took a course with Shawn Spangler recently, called Throw and Alter. Here is a progression I went through in the early weeks of the class. Apologies in advance some of these photos are dim.

Following my teacher's demonstration, I threw a bowl with a hollow lip--a neat way to add some volume to your piece without adding a lot of extra weight. Then, I altered it by pressing a rib into the lip in four places. This had a way of making it look slightly puffy.



I made another bowl and did this again but tried to exaggerate the effect, this time pressing the the rib in further, so the four puffy parts even look like lobes, which you can see from the top. I also pushed out from inside the bowl a bit, thinking I was squaring out the piece but I don't know that achieved the desired effect. But anyway, you have to show the clay who's boss sometimes.



I then tried to get more extreme, and threw a bowl with an even larger hollow lip. When pressing down with the rib, I actually cut through the rim, which really emphasized the fat, puffy form. It is starting to look like an inflated raft or link sausages or something. On a larger scale, this could be a very impressive centerpiece bowl, or could have a handle across the top and be a quirky ceramic basket.

I really like this idea of making hollow components to my work, giving it a fun chunkiness but without heaviness.