Dirty Little Secret, Shhhhh

All potters have a foot fetish. It’s true. Some may not admit it. But this is a universal truth. Just go to any event with pottery and play spot the potter. The potter will be the one who looks furtively from side to side and just when she thinks no one is looking, she’ll lift that pot ever so slightly and have a look at the bottom. Oh, and just do not get me started on bottoms…..

So at this point you might well ask “what exactly does this have to do with the price of tea in China?” Well, over the past couple of days I have been consumed with making pots. And those feet have been an ever present concern of mine. See those pots up there in the top left? Just not quite right. There is no lift to them. They end abruptly. The list of deficiencies goes on and on.

So finally I have come up with a solution to this dilemma. (The life of a potter is a never ending search for the perfect foot.) I cut out little squares of clay with holes in the center. I cut them apart bevel the edges and glue them on with my super glue toilet paper clay paste. And that could be enough but I really wanted the feeling that these feet grew out of the body of the pot. So I added moist clay sculpted those feet into the bottom of the pot. After 16 of them I’ve gotten quite good at this exercise.

Much better don’t you think? You see the foot of the pot is like putting on the finishing touch for an evening out. After all you wouldn’t go to dinner in your very finest but in your bedroom slippers, would you? Maybe the grocery store, but certainly not to dinner. Not even I would do that. I have actually accidentally gone to the grocerey store in my slippers. It's OK. They know me at the local and no longer roll their eyes.

So what about that flat bottom pot I lured you into this blog post with? Well she’s gone off to the corner for unloved pots until I decide what to do with her. It’s a kind of purgatory for pots and she has a lot of company.