Avery Speas "Burgandy Bloom"
11x11x6, Stoneware and Glaze, 2026
Once we were told to make a press bowl of any size, I knew I wanted to make a large bowl. I also knew that we needed two pieces of adornment added to the bowl to make it extra special. I then brainstormed ideas until I came up with the idea of a flower pot with flowers being the handles. I decided to make a flower pot because I knew that with how large I was making it, it would be able to hold a lot of flowers. I started to make little balls and then I pressed them into petal shapes. After the entire bowl was covered with these petals, I smoothed the petals together to make an even layer. I then attempted to make the edges more even with each other and I thinned out the sides a little bit. My plan was to make it a flower pot and so I poked 5 drainage holes in the bottom of the bowl. I repaired the cracks with slip and massaged it together. I made the top uneven but tried to get the sides smooth so I wouldn’t have to sand all that much. I then glazed my press bowl in the colors Smokey Merlot and Chun Plum. I think that this artwork means growth. This is because there was a lot of experimentation going on in the bowl and I was able to grow as I made the bowl. It also can correlate with the fact that plants will be able to grow in the bowl. I think that the most difficult part of making the press bowl was getting the sides to be as even as they could get. I had to keep adding and subtracting clay from the bowl so that everything would cook evenly. I also had to try to get the top to be even so I think that I really needed to be patient as I worked on this project. If I had to redo anything however, I would redo the glaze because I really had a vision for the inside of the bowl and it just didn’t turn out how I was expecting. I think that this bowl is unique to me because I mixed several different aspects of creating ceramics to make this bowl. I used a different method of constructing a bowl, used a create way to glaze the bowl, and used prints to create the handles. I can also tell that I challenged myself with the bowl.