For my first sculpture- I really wanted to use something dripped in porcelain and fired off in the kiln. What happens is the organic material- here newspaper- creates a shell around the piece and the porcelain stays in the same place. Its hard to describe, but when you see it finished- you’ll get it.

So I decided to make a Community Bowl- out of a entire new york times. I knew this was kinda a stretch, but go with me.

To start:

this was the weekend new york times- so lots and lots of paper. AND this is my first time using porcelain- woohoo.

then i took the paper apart- and stacked it all up

and cut it up!

the bag is lined in plastic so that it does not stick to the slip. for some reason, beyond me, wet clay and plastic do not mix. I then dipped the newspaper in the slip and pinched off excess.

and put it in the bowl- which will act as a mold for the bowl.

I repeated this process until i was out of newspaper.

so this is what it looks like when its done. its really heavy, so i think that is a good thing- i did use a ton of slip, but if it doesn’t work it will be a huge waste.

this is interesting to me: using newspaper as a medium, something that is valued highly for one day, and then trash the next- so the issue of time and the idea of making stoneware, something permanent, out of something so f is appealing.

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so now it has to dry, and be put in the kiln and the newspaper will disappear leaving only the traces of newspaper. 

we’ll come back to this in a few days.