Greenwood Studio's Wan

This orange wood-fired beauty comes from Shawn over at Greenwood Studio's.  I have two more pieces that were glazed and fired by Shawn but made by myself.   This one though as far as I know was made entirely by Shawn.

This picture shows off the wonderful effects in the glaze, but hides the nice form factor, there is actually several "wings" around where the vertical walls meed the sloping base into the food of the cup.  I do not know if they were intended to go all the way around and got dented in production or firing, or if it was completely intentional.


This piece is actually a very nice size, with incredibly thin, but sturdy walls.  I have used it quite a few times, though the first time was a bit of a shock, it once again showed me that when getting a brand new piece, a good soak is often beneficial, even if there seems to be no real sign of aromas from the firing.  That first cup of red tea I drank from this prior to a soak, had so many flavors and aromas from the kiln it was rediculous, ( I had to dump it after one sip).

Its odd I would not consider myself a fan of orange, but this is not my first piece whose primary color is orange, they are oddly growing on me, and this Greenwood Studios piece is a nice piece to have.

Park Jong Il Teapot Set

There is something about Korean teaware that just makes me happy, and this Teapot set from Park Jong Il does not disappoint. A ghostly mix of Blue, White and Grey, with some pinkish purple fawn spots, its wonderfully put together and thought out.

 

The Cups are small simple and elegant, playing with them in your fingers is a huge tactile adventure going from smooth and glassy to several different types of rough and grainy.  Then there is the teapot which has been by far the most shocking so far. I will show what I mean at the end of this post.  It now looks like its an antique and has been in my possession for at least a decade.

 

Last but not least is the faircup with the handle at an unusual but easily loveable angle.



As promised the picture of the highly stained ( for some reason on this piece I have been calling it a web), crackles on the teapot:

Self Made Celadon Teaboat

Keep in mind we are talking about the teaboat, the misshapen green thing underneath the teapot. I have had this piece for quite awhile, I really didn't think I was going to post about it, but it has certainly seen enough use, I figure I really should.

This is another one of the pieces whose form comes from day 1 of my pottery class this past summer.  It took me awhile to remember exactly what I did for this one, as i did not remember making a wide and shallow pinchwork bowl like this.  Well this piece was the Knee pot our teacher had us make.  I can hear some people wondering "what is a knee pot?"  Well its simple take a ball of clay throw it at a table while rotating it to stretch it out into a somewhat round shape to a somewhat uniform thickness. Lift it up, and throw it over your bent knee press it down slightly but not enough to leave dents in the clay.  Then pull it off your knee and decorate.

In hindsight, I realized this was the only finished piece that I will ever be showing off on this blog that I did not apply the white glaze to, that was not Western Raku fired.  But I went with the celadon glaze as I did a simple design that I was quite happy with on the bottom of this piece, which needed a semi-translucent glaze to show off.



Of course if I were to try and redo a piece like this, I feel just so I could apply the glaze as far down as I would have wanted to make sure the design was completely covered, I would create a simple coil foot. Although I would make it be a rather small coil, as I personally like rather low profiles for teaboats.