Carved Vashon orange vessel with blue green treament.

Karen and I gave this pot to our friends Nick and Allison as a wedding present. It seemed appropriate since Karen and I both worked on this piece and since they had their reception like 10 blocks from our house, why not have a piece made in the neighborhood?

This pot was coated on the interior with sapphire blue terra sigillata. Then the rim was coated with molasses brown and the exterior was layered with tx-1 texturizer, milky brown, blue mottled, denim blue, light blue and speckled ivory. The interior has tx-2 texturizer and chrome green and green mottled. Karen carved the squiggly line on the rim and on the waist with a small ball-point burnisher after the piece was dry but before it was fired.

I really like how the carving and the texturizer hold on to the mottling and give a feel of flowing liquid to the outer part of the piece. I also like the darkly aquatic finish on the inside... The inside is not sealed up past maybe 3 inches so, one probably shouldn't fill it to far with liquid but it would make a nice vessel for dry goods, kitchen tools, loose change, chopsticks or dried flowers... The list is endless... Like all hand crafted pottery, it could go in to the oven but thermal shock should be avoided by never putting it in to a hot oven (instead place it in a cold oven and then raise the temperature.) The finishes are all food safe but the geometry of the piece doesn't really lend itself to food service.