Meanwhile, the clay

I started taking pottery (wheel) classes at the FIA about 4 years ago, and always enjoyed them but realized pretty quickly that I had no artistic skills when it came to making things on the wheel. Or so I told myself at the time--I just kept churning out these endless medium bowls and rather clunky urns. (Though, if you are into clunky urns, mine were pretty good.) But it just wasn't clicking. Then I stumbled into the mosaics class (and I can't remember why I decided to take that class but there you go--one of those fateful moments that are seemingly uncaused yet, in retrospect, seem to fit in perfectly with everything you want or have been trying to do) and suddenly I began thinking about structures in a whole new way--not as ends in themselves but as means to be covered in tiny shards of glass. And mosaics book are, as a rule, filled with fantastic pottery that people have then covered with tessarae--it was a whole new way of thinking about clay and glass. So, when the FIA offered a handbuilding glass that promised to teach the student anything they wanted to know how to do, I signed up and started making my list. Firsts, coil building. I wanted to know how to make coil rolls (see play dough reference below) and build them into fantasticly improbable shapes. I had some sort of seed pod or gourd in mind. We've just finished our third class and this is what I have so far:

It's about 30" tall and (so far) has used about 25 lbs of clay. I will probably use another 5 or so pounds before I am done. People wander in the classroom while I work and comment (always annoying)--so far I have been asked if it is a chiminia, fireplace (?) or flower pot (?!?). I tell them that it isn't anything yet and will never be anything functional but that doesn't seem to satisfy. I'm toying with the idea of mosaicking just inside the mouth of the vessal when it is done--whenever that will be. What next? Slabs. (That's a technical term. No really.)