Just over a week ago, I attended a workshop with Meredith Brickell. She showed us many of the techniques that she uses in working with wet clay, talked about her thoughts toward working in clay, some of her surface decoration, glazing, and firing methods, and shared some recipes. The pace of the workshop was pleasantly fast.

I learned some really neat little tricks and a bunch of bigger techniques. I’m looking forward to making myself some bowl molds - my very own.

Meredith introduced the (to me) radical notion that wet clay could be used as a mold. We used pieces of old sheets and pillowcases like slings to move slabs of clay around, and to keep the wet mold and wet slab from sticking together. After making and draping this hump mold, I learned that she’s always done slump (concave) molds. Over the next few days, I added coils and used pinching and my serrated rib to create this:

I must say, I’ve never made anything like it, but I like where it’s going.