Mugs are a pleasure when you finally get some that feel right, that don't suffer from odd-handle-itis (see prior post about my first run mugs).  And I have a few that I like. I want to make more.  I'd better get rid of them quick because the more I think about them the more I see things I'd like to do differently next time, so I'd better send them away before I decide they are really seriously not worth a damn and thus better kept out of sight. (Actually, I don't think that would happen: these are mugs that I'm not unhappy with, that taught me stuff, and that I don't hate: more on that later).

So, a teapot is a daunting thing for a tyro potter.  But after throwing my lack of self confidence into the skutt bucket and putting my eyes on a YouTube video by that Simon Leach fellow who makes everything look so off-hand and easy (and it isn't, of course), I dove in and stared throwing.  There were going to be three, but I mucked up the first one on the wheel.  The other two pot-bodies came out reasonably okay.


They were fun to build and looked pretty shiny in greenware.  They were fun to glaze and didn't look ugly glazed, either, which is odd.  The lids are the simple kind, nothing fancy at all.  And one of them has a nifty clay bale handle that was hand-built and squared off on the table and laid onto the pot, and then some lugs pushed on to make it look, well, to make it look different.

I poured the glaze inside but tried a spray-job on the outside.  I really don't like spraying.  I can never get the stuff on thick enough.  But it worked out okay, and tea dust is a very forgiving glaze.
But then there is the matter of the handle.


Those lugs for the handle on the one that is to get a reed or bamboo or wood handle just don't quite do what I had expected.  I had not really planned where the front one would go.  I had sketched these out a bit, but when I was putting the spout on, I realized it had to go up on the wall of the pot a bit higher, thus making it impossible to put both lugs on the main body of the pot.  No matter.  That spout is as thick as the business end of a porn star's wanker, so there's nothing wrong, architecturally.  The front one sits higher.  The standard off-the-shelf bamboo and reed handles just look too small.

I'm going to the second hand store to find some ladies purses or handbags that have interesting strap-handles on them.  We'll see what I can put together.
(That handle solution is not my own idea, its Eduardo Lerma's idea. In fact; I steal ideas with impunity  and have none of my own.  If something original happens while I'm throwing it sure isn't me working on the clay, its more like the other way around. And the teapot is a beginner's clone of a Simon Leach sorta pot, by the way.)

I'd better hurry.  We have a show in two weeks.

Did I mention I threw and glazed a couple kick-ass mugs?  Briody is getting these.  That's Elizabeth, the author and anthropologist.  She thinks they'll go with her dinnerware but I don't know how she knows that.  I think she's being kind; she hasn't seen these things yet.  Okay, later, something about falling in love with the shape of a mug (or was it something I smoked?) and something about making strong rims on pots.  But not tonight.

\