This is my very first exposure to pottery. The cup was my first attempt. It was not centered perfectly on the wheel, thus ended up thicker on one side. As the material shrunk in baking (which is normal), the thinner side also got shorter. The result is an even more lopsided cup. The texture in the finishes is on purpose. Each piece is baked twice at 2300 degrees, once to set the clay and once to melt the glaze.

Nobody says you really have to do pots with pottery materials. This piece was an experiment to see if I could make figures with pottery clay using some of the same techniques used with polymer clay. You can't get detail in the color with pottery clay and glazes, but you can't get the glassy finish with polymer.

Now fast forward a few years. Joy and I spent a few sessions with Captain Mudslinger in Afton brushing up our skills. These are some more traditional pieces I made on the pottery wheel.

The triangle shaped vase was made using what is called "slab pottery" - you roll the clay out flat like cookie dough, then cut and stick together with water. Then bake and glaze as with wheel thrown pottery.

This is what I have seen referred to as "organic" pottery. It is a mix of wheel thrown, slab, and free style. The piece on the left is a metaphoric "birth of a vase".

I had to include this picture to give you some idea of what a really serious ceramics guy looks like firing the ceramics. The first time I took a ceramics class many years ago, the kiln was an electric oven that somewhat resembled an oversized top loading clothes washing machine. Captain Mudslinger doesn't fool around with such basic equipment. He built his own propane fired kiln from special high temperature kiln brick. The kiln is roughly a 6-foot cube. There are two big propane burners at the base. He starts early in the morning, and by early evening, the kiln will have reached about 2,250 degrees (F). The last big blast kicks it up the last 50 degrees to the target 2,300 degrees. But the manner in which it is fired for that last 50 degrees also produces an oxygen depletion that causes chemical changes in the glaze.

The manner in which it is fired for that last 50 degrees is where we conclude Captain Mudslinger is completely crazy. For the first 2,250 degrees, he's burning propane gas. But for that final blast, he swaps out the gear for a special pump, dual hoses, and nozzles to pump two streams of propane in raw liquid form directly into the fire. That's what you see going on in this picture. Joy and I started at what we thought was a safe distance for observing. By the time it was over with, we were at least 5 times farther away (although I'm sure it was still a totally false sense of security).

You might think the neighbors would object to this craziness. But they don't. In fact they don't say a thing. His studio is next to a cemetery.