Lidded Slab Containers

My Lidded Slab Container

The background and shaping process: To the left are a couple pictures of my lidded slab container. Unlike most of my ceramic works, I would say that this pot happened to evolve each class as I learnt new techniques. At first, when I had just begun, I didn't really know what I wanted for my container, all I knew was that I wanted it to be original. And so I went along with it. I first started off this process with rolling out a piece of clay on the slab roller and then, fortunately or unfortunately, my slab turned out to be quite big, which is part of the reason why my container is large in size. After attaching a top, bottom, and finishing the sculpting of my container, I was a little lost. I didn't know what direction to go in for my stamps. One idea that I had was to use fish stamps and go with an ocean theme while another idea was to use the bamboo stamp and cover the whole pot with it, but all of these ideas had already been used, so I decided to go in a different direction and use circular stamps. These cone like figures were very interesting to me, and so using the biggest one I could, I created two circles along the middle of my container and imprinted wing like designs onto the sides of the circles. To help the designs stand out more, I used a carving tool and went over the textures as I increased them in depth. After doing this and to create a border along my pot, I used the back of a slip brush to poke holes along the top and bottom of my container. Once I was done creating the body of my lidded slab container, I decided to use extruded parts to construct my lid. Since I had used the extruder once before, I was pretty excited to have another go at it and now I was feeling pretty confident to play around and use it to its full extent. This time around, I extruded a couple pieces of clay. The first one I extruded was a sharp, square like piece while the second one was a thick, circular piece. Using these two types of extruded parts, I created an arch over the lid of the container, with two square and two circular pieces all connecting at a small ball of clay with lots of slip and scoring. And lastly, once my clay had hardened a little and everything was properly intact, I used a needle to cut out my lid which I made sure included multiple locking devices. After cutting my lid, slipping and scoring, and lots of shaping, I was done with this part of making my pot and it was ready to go into the kiln.


The glazing process: Once my pot came out of the kiln and it was ready to be glazed, I was sure that I wanted to use the solid, intriguing, and interesting high fire glazes. Though I knew what kind of a glaze I wanted to use, I wasn't really sure where to start. The class before, we had learnt about inlaid glazing and I was sure that I wanted to try that. So I dunked my pot and lid into blue root teal and started to inlay glaze. To do this, I had to get a damp sponge and start rubbing the glaze into the textures and creases of the pot, while still removing the layer of glaze accumulated on the not textured surface of the pot. After about fifteen minutes of this inlay glazing and after the glaze dried up a little, I wanted to add in another color to the mix, and so I dunked my whole pot and lid- inside and outside, into the smokey merlot glaze. Repeating the same process, I rubbed the smokey merlot glaze into the circular and wing like textures of my container and once it was dry, I dunked only the bottom of the pot into the Celadon glaze. The reason I only dunked the bottom of my container and not the whole thing, was because I wanted a contrast in colors. After all of this glazing was done, I put my pot and lid into the kiln, and hoped for the best possible outcome.

A Fuller View of My Container

The final product and my reaction: Overall, I'm happy with my lidded slab container and I really like how it came out to be. At first, I was a little worried that maybe my pot would've been to big and something would've happened to it, but I actually think that it's size helps it to stand out and it what makes it special. I also thought that I wouldn't have enough designs and textures to truly cover up the lots of space in my pot, but I like that not everything is so crowded and cluttered with hundred of designs and stamps. Lastly, I was a little worried that the glazes I chose wouldn't turn out that well together, but I like the contrast in colors and how the glazes work together to complement each other. I think that I've gained a lot from this experience as it was my first time using the technique of inlaid glazing and now that I've used it once, I will definitely want to use it again in my future ceramic forms. I also am very happy that I've got to experiment and handle the stamps that so well contributed to my piece, and I can't wait to use them again in another one of my pots. Without the great new techniques and tricks, I learnt in class throughout this process, I don't think I would've been able to produced a lidded slab container like the one I did, and I'm excited to make some more pieces similar to this!