I love pushing the boundaries of what clay can stand up to. Carving and elaborate cuts are always unpredictable in the kiln. The more free standing the appendage is the higher chance it will slump or bend. Sometimes this is a bad thing but only if your wanting your finished piece to look just how you arranged it. I'm obsessed with organic shapes so I love the anticipation of waiting to see how my cuts and molding changed thru out the firing process. My glaze firings are what we potters call cone 6 which equates to around 2200 degrees. That means as the clay goes thru the firing the clay will quite literally become red hot and start to bend and move as it becomes soft but not quite melting. The end result of course is that the clay then becomes, yet again, as hard as stone like it once was millenia ago before it broke down into clay.
In the short video below you'll see a simple carved bowl in process and in the photo you'll see what I called my flame bowls. They were quite lovely and VERY unpredictable as I truly pushed the clay to its very limits in order to achieve the very organic and natural flowing look.
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