Lidded Jars

Artist Statement:

For this project, we were assigned to create two lidded jars that show some sort of unity. Going into this project I knew I wanted to make something functional and I brought in a couple of different ideas from things I saw on Instagram, thumb watering cans, to things I was in the world around me. I recently went to a Chinese restaurant in Brunswick, Watami, and drew some inspiration from their soy sauce containers placed at each table. I am a lover of sushi and make it quite often at home, so I knew that making my own soy sauce container would not only be functional in my household but would also just spice my own table. When it came to inspiration for the acorn I don't really know where that idea come from, but it suddenly appeared in my mind and I just took it and ran with it. The more the idea came to life the more I began to love it. To create some unity between the two forms, I used the same shaped stem from the acorn and put it on the lid of the soy sauce jar.

The materials I used for this project was clay, and a plethora of glazes: PC-20, PC-29, PC-33, and HF-165. For this project, we were practicing the pinch technique making pinch pots with lids. We took a chunk of clay that was roughly half the size of the pot we envisioned and began to pinch the pot from the bottom up. After the basic form was complete I several different tools along with some slip to seal any cracks that may have appeared during the process and to make the surface smooth. The pots were then left to dry and then bisque-fired before glazing. When it came time to glaze my pots, I knew that this was another to create more unity between my two jars. Since one jar was an acorn, it seemed like a great idea to incorporate that into the soy sauce jar, and what better pairs with acorns? Oak Leaves! Painting the Oak leaves was at first tricky because there wasn't a brush small enough to incorporate the details I wanted onto the leaves and it was difficult to keep the edges clean. That was when I decided to experiment and tried using a needle tool to paint those fine details and that worked really well. I also experimented with some glazes that I was interested in using for my Multiple Pinch Pot Summative so I pained the inside of both pots bright red (HF-165).

Overall I am really happy with how these pieces turned out. My favorite part about the whole process was experimenting with the glazes and finally seeing the finished product come out of the kiln because there was that unknown factor of what and how the color was going to show up since many factors play a part in it. I was also thrilled that both my lids fit nicely into my jars and that my soy sauce jar is functional. After the soy sauce jar's bisque-firing, I realized that there was a blockage in the spout that was cemented in there, and took quite a bit of force to get out, but in the end, everything worked. Something that I wish I could have done differently was layer more glaze for the details in the leaves that got lost during the final firing as well as change the placement of the spout lower so it could work better. But overall, I think they both turned out pretty unique and I am happy with the results.