MY "FRASIER POT"!

Watching shows of Frasier is the only thing that gets me through the agony of walking on the treadmill. They are without a doubt some of the funniest and cleverest people on television. Kudos to their writers! Anyway, on the table behind their couch sits a beautiful pot. I want one. I want to make one! I have tried several times to throw the base and the top but the form is very wide and the angle is only about 30 degrees—it slumps every time. So, I decided I’d make it using slabs. First I made two cardboard forms on which to rest the slabs.

Then I rolled out four slabs and cut the pieces to fit and match on the cardboard forms.

I slid the newspaper out from under, cut the edges at about a 45 degree angle so there would be more surfaces touching each other, scored them and painted them with magic water. Then I let them both stiffen up until it was “safe” to place them one on top of the other. I set one in a bowl for support, cut the edges at a 45 degree angle, then painted them with the magic water and put the two together. This is where they started to lose their shapes and take on personalities of their own…

While these set up a while longer I threw a base and a rim.

BTW you will notice that I am using two different colored clays. The bottom is porcelain, S213 and the top is S240 white stoneware clay scraps that are beige because it is recycled from a lost pot into which I had mixed oxides. I have no idea what color it will fire out to be. I attached the base to the pot but I didn’t like it; it made the whole unit too tall, so I cut the base off the base, put a slab on top and worked it on.

(Too bad I like the shape and form of the first one. Oh well.) I scored and slipped the rims and put them together.

This also looked taller than I wanted so I cut it back (and used the doughnut of the original rim as a hanger for my wind chime doodads. I scratched my signature lines into the top hoping they might distract a little from the lopsidedness of the piece. If I ever try this again (...NOT...) I think I'd go to the trouble to make stronger cardboard forms, maybe even leave them in to support the walls then fire them out. The next step is to see if the seams all separate during the firing.... ttfn