Construction work underway

New Year's Day 'making experiments' were disappointing as previously discussed and I just couldn't seem to get into the zone! A week later, totally different... I was completely inspired! I'd spent some time looking at Instagram and, through follower's comments, I'd eventually wound up looking again at the paper folding work of Matthew Shlian. Matt makes the most fantastically intricate and perfectly constructed paper sculptures - by hand! Every piece of work must take him weeks and weeks of work! I love his sculptures and I completely admire his tenacity.

I spent some time thinking about his work and, like I say, the fact that it must take absolutely ages to construct, and I came to the conclusion that this is exactly the way I like to work. Most of the stuff I make (whilst not being anything like the quality of Matthew's!) does take a while. I'm constantly trying to improve my techniques and never have been put off by the length of time a piece of work takes to make. It doesn't matter! With repetition comes efficiency. And I enjoy repetition.

So, with Matt's work still lurking somewhere in the back of my mind, I prepared some extrusions and, when they were ready, began to cut them up with my favourite potter's tool: the scalpel...

Things went well!

I began with various small 'sketches' and eventually some larger more interesting forms evolved...

 

These diamond shapes came from the pile of halved ovals - and they fit together as shown in the first image in this collage -
quite interesting little components that I can maybe mess around with a bit more.  I've fired a few.

This just kind of happened as a result of laying small sections of extruded clay on to a wavy single extrusion and building upwards! As soon as I began it, I liked it. Initially I'd lined everything up perfectly but quickly realized that the rows needed to be offset to create a more interesting form. This has a lot of potential for use with vessel making too I think. I'm looking forward to being home from the Canaries in order to get back on and experiment with this!

 

Topped with a flat coil, I'm not so sure this is quite so interesting but I need to experiment more. I had to chop it up a bit lengthwise to box it in order to transport to the college for firing! Shame really. I think it will sit back together though.

 

This? Not sure! Just another bit of messing around and it was still damp when I left the house so I couldn't do much with it. I thought about cutting some circular shapes into it... here and there. Will maybe revisit!

 

 

Again, I wasn't quite sure where I was going with these... 

Just experimenting with some ideas and patterns on the back of recent raku work...