No, it is not the cake that I have promised myself to bake on Sunday what came out of the oven , what is freshly baked are my first ceramics of the year!
Thursday, autumn morning, I started to ride my bike a bit before 9am; I was really curious to see how the work would look. It had been put in the oven on Tuesday, the cooking took some 16 hours and then another day till they cooled and we could see the result.
Finn waited for me, he knew I’m always at 10 o’clock at the studio, but he was also curious. His work was also in the oven, and we both had been experimenting with colors so he couldn’t help himself and opened the oven before I arrived, however he was nice and waited until I was there to take the pieces out.
I was afraid, would they be broken, would they look anything like I had in mind.
It was the first time I glazed my sculptures;I have seen Finn glazing and coloring his works with so many different techniques for the last month, that I was really confused about what to expect. He never did dogs, he is a potter and an artist, but he doesn’t sculpt, so even thou he could guide me and teach me, none of us knew what the result would be on my doggies.
‘I was waiting for you’ he said standing beside the electric oven that had the door open, ‘I just opened it, I didn’t take anything out, you have to see this’
I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing, so I walked over, very slowly and shyly looked inside. Everything seemed right, I saw two dogs and they were all in one piece. I could feel my heart was beating again and my eyes were shiny. I was anxious I wanted to touch them, to see them all over around. Just to think that a month ago that dog was a simple piece of grey/brown wet clay with no form was really encouraging.
Ever since I started sculpting I get the same thought when I see the finished pieces: IT WAS JUST A PIECE OF CLAY WITH NO FORM. Somehow this idea gives me a lot to think about life itself, all things are just just ideas in the beginning, then we have things with no form, or unclear shapes and somehow we just make this ideas into material realities.
But there they were, my 7 dogs and all Finn’s works (the rest of the oven capacity). I stared at them for a while, then I touched them, they were still hot, but they felt soft, smooth, somehow cosy. The white Schnauzer resembled white chocolate and I was about to lick it, but I remembered it was a ceramic. The blacks looked a lot like black patinas on bronze with some shades of copper color in the rough areas, I loved the effect! The textures in the clay played an important part here.
And at last I looked at the pepper & salt pair, my first impression was ‘WOW they look so real’, then I discovered the Vintage effect on them, and they looked simply fantastic, I didn’t expect that I would like them that much. Finn kept telling me during the entire week ‘be ready for disappointments, this is your first test with this techniques, it can fail, do not give up’. I think that to have that idea in my mind was somewhat a good thing because I had my expectations really low.
That afternoon I took them downstairs to the photo-studio and we had a serious photo session. I hope that I captured the real look as much as possible. I wish that I could make a hologram or even better, some method I could give you to try how they feel in your hands.
But since all those other ideas aren’t possible I just decided to make some videos with my phone and photos with the camera, if you want to discover more, I can suggest you to get one 🙂 or come to visit us in Denmark. Otherwise keep coming and see the photos and videos in the blog or Facebook!
Salt & Pepper Schnauzer ‘Vintage look’ CERAMIC
White Miniature Schnauzer on the move CERAMIC
Black Schnauzer face
Barbara.
