Alack! Alas! I Have No Class!

Summer's a-comin' and I was looking forward to enjoying what was THE ONLY THING I enjoyed about enduring The Great Bake that is summer in Las Vegas – an evening ceramics class at the local community college.  Sadly, it isn't being offered this year.  I love the feel and manipulation of clay, and creating something that exists in its own right, not just an image on paper or whatever.  Also, it teaches you that you can't control everything.  In ceramics, when you make something it's final outcome as a success or failure is somewhat dependent on factors you can't control.  I won't get into all the details, but know that the cool pot, or bowl or whatever you make has maybe a 50/50 chance of coming out of the whole process either intact, or cool looking.  Maybe a 25% chance of hitting on both scores.  Here's a couple that did:

 

Here's an example that didn't make it all the way through the process intact, but still looks kinda cool:

Here, the cracking you see is glaze-cracking.  It's supposed to do that, and it gives a neat effect.  The sad part about this is that this skull originally had six spider-like legs coming out of it.  I managed to create, attach and dry the whole piece successfully and transport it to the class intact.  My arms shook a little as I was lowering into the kiln and that was enough to snap off most of the legs.  I cut off the rest of the legs and fired the skull.  During the final firing the instructor looked into a peephole in the kiln and saw it.  He said it was "glowing red with fire shooting out of the eyesockets.  That's one of the coolest things I've ever seen in a kiln."  Ah, well – maybe next year.