The weekend was about the ugly.
The big business BBQ we had in the backyard went great. The day after was...UGLY. Clean up after such affairs is never fun, but doing it after partying too much is even less fun. I tried my best to hang in there, but just gave into the ugliness and rested for pretty much most of the day. Bed bound is never fun for me. It's actually torture.
Sunday was much more pleasant even though I wasn't fully recovered. Lounging on a raft in the pool with other members of my family who were also in recovery mode was nice. My mind was wandering on clay and raku, but without the full capabilities I decided to just fire up a test strip of the "wild" clay more fully in the new Paragon kiln while I lounged. In a half an hour I'd see if 2000 degrees would fully fire this found clay and it did. It fired it beautifully to a mocha and purplish clay. The ugliness of this adventure though came when I decided to slap on some glaze. I was just too impatient to see how it would look glazed and didn't even let the glaze dry fully. Just slapped it on and sorta popped it in the kiln.
Well, it is probably the ugliest vessel and yet, the most beautiful vessel I have ever made. Everything that is the woods....my woods from home....has been captured in this one little treasure. The outside covered with Georgies "Turquoise Lagoon" is reminiscent of the lichen covered rocks I climbed as a child. Never ending were my adventures in the woods. The inside also glazed with one of Georgie's glazes had captured the mud and ash rocks of my playground. The precarious cracks which look like trees were also a reminder of how fragile it all was with the entire area having been mined to the bone. As a child I just knew what areas were unsafe. The cracks in the ground and lean of the trees told a story of distress and I just knew to avoid those areas.
But the vessel is ugly. Truly ugly in ever sense of the word and I'm dying to replicate it so my father can have one too.
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