jackolantern well

jackolantern well was the first ceramic project I made. Using white clay, this piece was another handmade project of mine, rather than using the pottery wheel. The prompt for this piece was mostly to freestyle, take clay, and experiment with building. My ceramics class and I started by making vase like figures, and make adjustments based on what we wanted to make. I made the base figure of my piece by using the slip method, of having your fingers soaked in water, and repeatedly pulling the top of the clay mold. After doing that, I had a strong base and top area of my piece, but the middle area of the clay I was using became really thin and weak. To make sure my piece wouldn’t break, I grabbed more clay, rolled it, and made a coil to wrap around the piece. It made it look like what I had had a belt on, so I decided I would make a creature of sorts. I carved details and poked holes to create the creature’s facial features, the top of the piece, the hearts and stars on the belt, and made little clay balls to make jackolaterns in the bottom. I used green, orange, black, and turquoise underglazes/mixes to paint. The piece went on to go through a first bisque firing (I believe it was lowfire). After taking it out of the kiln, I soaked half of the piece in a creme blue glaze, and the other half in a clear gloss glaze. Then, the piece went through a glaze firing, and after it was finished, I outlined some details with pink sharpie. Thus, jackolantern well was born :)