Pottery Vessel by William

As I've been progressing in my pottery career, I've found myself falling in love with surface decoration. I think that many potters spend time making vessels of a certain size or shape and that's the purpose of their work. For me, I find myself making vessels just for the fun of seeing how I can decorate them. While size and shape matter to me, the most important aspect of the vessel creation right now is having something functional that I can decorate. 

This frees me from the idea that vessels need to be a certain shape or size to serve a purpose, and allows me to have more freedom in what I'm working on. It also gives me great canvases of all kinds to apply various surface techniques. 

For these pieces, I went back to my childhood. Inspriation can come from anywhere, and for these, I found myself back in my dad's garage. My dad and his brothers used to work on cars, and, as a child, there was so much to see. I'd watch them do oil changes, weld new parts onto wrecked cars, find grimey cans filled with old nuts and bolts in the corners of the shop. You'd hear power tools going and people yelling across the garage to one another. It was an exciting place to be. While I grew up not working on cars, I have a great apprecaition for the work that people like my dad do. And, with this small series, I wanted to pay homage to these times and these people. 

I started with a wheel-made vessel. I then added slip to give a slightly bulbous and drippy effect. Then, for the glazes, I wanted them to look old and oily and shiny yet dingy—like they've been sitting in an old garage for years. I wanted them to look like the oily cans that used to hold all the old nuts and bolts from the garage. I'm very happy with how these turned out, and I'm releasing them as a special edition titled "My Dad's Garage". 

Approximate Size of this Piece: 3.75" x 3.25"

This item was created using food-safe glazes.