My mom loves dishes and has every dish. She has her mom's Noritake and her own Fiesta. Given that, I asked her if she wanted anything now that I am learning wheel throwing, and she said: serving bowls. It's true, we use a mixing bowl to serve from at her house. It turns out (triple pun) to be a shockingly hard request.
The design: medium height to fill in the need between serving plates and mixing bowl or crock pot crock. Glaze that will coordinate with the Fiesta ware- so, glossy and uniform. I will include a picture of some of her tableware broken up for mosaic, but she also has two shades of green and a second shade of blue not pictured. So I think this is pretty flexible- blue, purple, black, or white would all work. (Actually it is occurring to me that clear glaze would be a nice contrast with the Fiesta). Because it is a gift I am not going to follow my sea urchin accretion instinct but will only stamp a shallow debossed design on the bottom. And that means the bottom has to be flat before the trimming stage, because that stage will be too hard for the stamps I have already made.
The attempt:
Clay shrinks when fired, we were told our clay shrinks about 13%, so I was aiming to throw a bowl bigger than 12" across.
We learned to wheel throw by centering the clay into a puck, which is conveniently the diameter of the inside of my cupped hand. The base of a serving bowl is bigger than that. I found online a way to start with the puck and stretch it but the technique I learned for flattening the bottom, dragging one fingertip slowly across it, couldn't level such a big expanse. Then also the sides I was making slumped all the way down to the surface, the MDF bat. I continued turning it just in case I could learn more by continuing, but of course there was no salvaging the piece. For my purposes, the bottom was too thin and the piano wire clay cutter sliced through it.
This really seems like a job for handbuilding... roll out a piece of clay, line a pot with saran wrap, drape the clay and press it into place. Leave it for some time until it dries enough to flip out of the pot and out of the saran wrap. The two things that stop me are: I don't have a pot with the perfect size and shape, and, I am learning wheel throwing. I am accepting the process. I am welcoming the challenge.
This really looks so much closer to the intention than it was in person. But looking now at this photo it looks closer than I remember when I was making it. And look at that beautiful rim.
Notes for me for next time: started with 3 pounds of clay, could try 3 1/2. Was hard to manhandle so probably not ready for 4. Maybe find a rib with a straight side for the bottom. Okay for walls to be thick to accommodate trimming texture for grip.
