Yesterday, when helping out with Connie at her little pottery, she upgraded me to the slightly more challenging task of constructing little clay soap-dishes. They don’t look like much at the moment, but they will do! I need to confirm with Connie exactly how the process works, but I believe she will now repair the cracks in them which resulted from the clay being a bit too dry, glaze them and then paint them. It feels wonderful to be more and more involved with the shop and its items each time I work with Connie!
Here is exactly what was involved in making the dishes. Connie had rolled out some clay for me to work with. I had to cut out soap-dish shapes from a cardboard template, then place the dish on a sponge and use a heavy block to push down the middle of the dish into the sponge, thus upturning the edges so it is more of a shallow bowl shape than just a flat plate. As I waited for them to harden a bit, I stamped out little feet out of the leftover clay, then attached those onto the base of the dishes with slip. I also made some very cute little hedge-hog shaped ring dishes out of the leftovers, and made little feet too. Overall I got about thirty done out of Connie’s goal of 70 (to be completed over the next few sessions – she didn’t expect me to have them all done yesterday!).
I had a fantastic and very productive day yesterday. I can’t wait to see what the dishes look like all finished and on the shelves, and to experience the feeling Connie always talks about when someone buys one of your own creations!
