Element of Nature 

For this assignment, I had to create a useful object that was in some way inspired by an element of nature. I chose to do spoons because first of all, they're my favorite utensil and therefore useful, and secondly, because I believe that they're associated with water, whether that be because they can hold water themselves, or because they are often used in things that are mainly made of water, like tea. 

As soon as I started this project, I realized it was going to be harder than I initially thought. I began by making a few practice spoons of various sizes using just my hands to sort of get a feel for how I was going to go about this. I then concluded that some sort of mold would be the best way to approach spoon making, I made two different molds, and neither gave the result that I wanted. I ended up returning to my initial method of making the handles and then using the cup of my hand to form the head of the spoon. When attaching the handle and head, I made sure that the union was not only strong but also smooth. I did that by making sure that the clay I used was very very wet so that it could be easy to smooth, but also get into every nook and cranny of the joint. After the spoons were made, I made sure they were as smooth as possible using my fingers and then left them to dry and then get bisque fired. I knew from the start that I wanted glaze covering my spoons entirely, which you know is sort of impossible because glaze can't touch the bottom of the klin. Mr. A and I worked around this problem by using little spikes that hardly touched the spoon to keep it elevated from the bottom of the kiln so that the glaze wouldn't fuse my spoons to the kiln. 

Overall, I'm happy with my final product and ultimately wouldn't change much about my process. I would, however, maybe make the spoon more aesthetically related to water as that was an important part of the assignment, but I do think the spoon itself related to water. Another thing I would change would be to just slow down my process and make sure the spoon as symmetrical, well structured, and smooth, I say this because I feel that I maybe rushed the process a little and they don't reflect by very best effort.