Coil Technique (Coil & Carve and Historical Coil Pot)

For this unit we made a practice coil pot and a final historical coil part of our choice. For the carved part I decided to make it look like branches of a tree when I carved it. The idea stemmed from tree drawings I made when I was little but I ended up just doing random lines pretty much. This project relates to my life because I try to make the best of things. When I carved too deep and poked holes in the pot I put intentional holes in other places to make it look like I did it on purpose, sort of like a little face. I think this helped the final product to look less bad in simple terms. The same goes for the historical coil pot. It started to get lopsided but I did my best to level it and made the best of it in the end.

To make these projects we used clay to make coils which we then stacked on top of each other and blended to make a smooth and relatively unified piece. To carve the pot I use these tools that are also used to carve rubber to make stamps. I forgot what they’re called. For the historical coil pot I glazed it with blue glaze so that I could put water in it and have it as a vase.

The car pot did not evolve much or have much of a process. I started by building a simple coil pot and letting it harden enough so that I can carve it without it being bone dry. If I were to do this again I would make sure to not go so deep when I carved because I ended up having holes in the pot. For the historical coil pot I had more trouble. I was doing my best to build the part up but it was not symmetrical on both sides. We ended up leveling it and it was still not symmetrical. However we were able to make it straight on the top. If I were to do this again I would try to make sure both sides were somewhat symmetrical as I built to prevent further abnormalities in the future.