Gone Awry… or Too Dry

So what happens when clay dries out too much before you get it put together?  Bad things.

I’ve had a pretty good stretch since about Christmas in which I’ve dedicated a good amount of my extra time to cranking out pottery.  Of course I have to do it around work and visitors and making sure the baby doesn’t stress my wife out too much.  So there are times when the schedules don’t line up and something might dry out too much because I thought I could get to it sooner.  That was the case with some logo mugs that I was working on a couple weeks ago.

I had wheel thrown a number of mug forms and needed them to dry out a little so the clay wasn’t too soft and sticky.  By the time I got back to them they were a little too dry but I attached handles and logos anyway and then let them slowly dry out completely.  Of the 6 or 8 that I was working on, 3 had cracks where the logos or handles were attached that were beyond repair.  There were a few others with hairline cracks that might survive (fingers crossed).

So it was a sad day in the clay studio.  But a couple of the logos came off easily and I tore the others off and sanded out the rough spots and I’ll fire the bare mugs or cylinders and see what happens.  Perhaps some brush holders for the studio at the very least.  The good  news is that I have a few more batches in the works.  I’ll have some pictures of some new logo mugs soon.  Maybe some will even have the logos still attached!