Ceramics!!

My fancy chalice!

     We started a Ceramics Unit in Creative Arts!  Our latest assignment is to create a place setting out of clay for someone important to us.  A place setting has to include a cup, a plate and a bowl.  The person can be someone we actually know, a celebrity or even a fictional character!  The person I chose is of course, Taylor Swift!
     I started off by making a bowl.  To make a bowl, you take wet clay and drape it over a bowl mold, cut off the extra clay, and dry it with a heat gun.  It seems like there's always something trying to burn me in every unit, because heat guns can supposedly give you third degree burns!
    But the fire of the heat gun is nothing compared to the fire of the kiln!  When we're done with our bowls (or plates or cups) we set them in the back of the room for Mrs. Kiick to fire in the kiln.

Guitar tab

    But we have to make our place settings for the people we are paying tribute to, they can't just be ordinary boring dishes.  So to make my bowl Taylor Swift-y, I patterned the outside to sort of look like guitar tabs, and sculpted a guitar to stick on the inside of the bowl.  Unfortunately, clay doesn't just stick together, you have to slip and score it.  Slipping and scoring is done by slashing up both pieces of clay where they will be stuck together (the back of the guitar and the spot on the bowl where I put the guitar) and then making the clay soft with water.  THEN you can stick two pieces of clay together!

Taylor Swift in Love Story

    I don't have pictures of my bowl, because it is hopefully being fired, but I do have pictures of the next thing I made: a chalice! I made this by making a small bowl and then slipping and scoring a stem and base to it.  This chalice is mostly inspired by the first Taylor Swift song I ever bought: "Love Story", which is about Romeo and Juliet, but with a happy ending!  The stone pattern on the top represents the stone castle she lived in in the music video.  The vine is symbolizing Romeo and Juliet, since I do not feel skilled enough to make an actual balcony with vines growing on it.  The pebbles around the base of the stem are for the lines "you were Romeo and you were throwing pebbles" and the ring is for the line "he knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring and said marry me Juliet".  The chalice itself represents the time period the song is set in!  I just finished my chalice a few days ago, and I am very excited to use it!

The ring and pebbles!