Fish (casserole) bowl

Fish bowl - hand built from slabs and coils, sculpted akio
clay.  Glazed with Phila, Slate, Clear, Kaki, Woo, Toffee
and copper carbonate stain.  Brushed, dripped and sponged
on glaze, reduction fired in two pieces.  Used clay wads to
support lid during firing.

I like how this piece turned out.  The making of it was pretty spontaneous.  I made the bottom first, starting with a teardrop shaped slab of clay. I built up the shape with coils, and instead of cutting off the excess coils left them to stick out at the end.  Then I somehow got the idea to shape that clay into a fish tail and then the rest of the piece took shape.  After building the bowl, the piece was screaming for a lid.  This was kind of tricky since I had to get the lid to fit the shape of the bowl.  I made a template using a cutout from paper and used that to approximate the lid size.  I had wanted the lid to be domed in shape but that proved very difficult to do and preserve the size to fit the bottom so I decided to keep the top surface flat.  Then I made a double rim so that it would sit on top of the bowl  I had top make the rims open in order to accommodate the tail.

The glazing was pretty interesting as well.  I did not dip, spray or pour glaze.  I stained all the fin joint areas with copper carbonate and sponged on akio at the edges.  I used a bulb to drip phila stripes on the body and followed that with some white  stripes.  Then I sponged slate and akio in between the stripes to form alternating colored patterns.  I brushed woo and toffee in two directions around the head an mouth and used phila  (thick) for the lips.  The interior is mostly clear with some woo underneath.  I tried painting a white backbone on the bottom of the bowl but it didn't quite show through.

It was recommended to fire the pieces separately so that I could get them apart later, but I had to use clay wads to support the lid and prevent it from slumping in the kiln.

I don't know how functional the piece is - the bowl is actually quite small compared to the lid.