Sitting is Difficult

Apparently I've been having trouble sitting in my studio this month. Earlier this month my throwing stool suddenly, and for no apparent reason, broke while I was sitting on it.

broken stool

Then this weekend my tall chair seat ripped when I stood up. Hmm...I did have a lot of cookies this weekend...

ripped canvas seat

Luckily, I have two of these tall director's chairs and the other one had its canvas seat replaced a few years ago, so I was able to resume sitting in the studio almost immediately.

did someone ship me a star? just what I've always wanted!

After a few e-mails, a week of waiting, and one follow up call, the stool company finally decided to send the replacement chair base. I was inordinately pleased by the way they chose to package the stool base for shipping. I'm guessing the packing people enjoyed this, too.

friendly wall pieces waiting for their firing

Despite the trouble I've had maintaining a fully functioning seat, I did manage to finish some work in the studio. I finished a few small wall sculptures last week and this weekend. 

lidded forms, ready to dry

This week I threw with the repaired stool and was happy to discover that my previous inability to throw was temporary. Either the new stool or a change in a variety of other factors (clay, mood, wedging, weather...) got me back to normal.

handles that don't annoy me.

I'm not sure the stool can account for my handles going better than last time, but pulling handles was noticeably more effective this week than last time. I was a little more careful in preparing my clay for throwing, but even that shouldn't have had any impact on handles, since I prepare them the exact same way and used the same type of clay.

pitcher/creamer form, pre-handle

One of the reasons I chose to throw again this week was to make a new creamer to replace one in a set that was ordered earlier this year. I am also considering using some of this weeks mugs in place of the ones I threw two weeks ago. 

you can see how lazy I was, I didn't switch out my throwing water when I switched from red to white clay

I usually trim pitchers or creamers on a chuck, but I hadn't prepared one and didn't want to. I was using my Giffin Grip in combination with a sponge to trim my lids and I thought I'd try a similar trick to trim my spouted forms. I was mostly being lazy, but I found that using a folded washcloth, in combination with the Giffin Grip worked pretty well.