Figrin D'an & the Modal Nodes WIP

View the finished version of Figrin D'an & the Modal Nodes

I was feeling intimidated by the Bith facial folds, but they weren't as complicated as I was expecting.  These are wall hangings depicting the all-Bith band from A New Hope known as Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes.  Many reference sources count five Bith in the band, but this amazing website counts seven.  Nevertheless, I'm going with five.  I'm also planning on making flat clay pieces of the instruments.

Small Normal Menorah WIP

View the finished version of the Small Normal Menorah here.

This is one of a series of three normal menorahs, appropriate for any Helen and Morty Seinfeld who don't like weird shit on their religious paraphernalia.  This is the smallest of the three.  It has a pattern from what I believe is the "skeleton" of a prickly pear plant.

Baby Head Menorah

This is a slab menorah with 37 molded baby heads.  There are two different baby head molds, one with the eyes open and the other with the eyes closed.  The individual heads came out in a variety of different shapes depending on how it was arbitrarily distorted.  It's 8.5 inches long, 7 inches high at the shamus (candle used to light the other candles) holder, and about 2.5 inches thick.

Chamsa 106

I like the effect of the cobalt oxide with an off-white glaze on top of it better than our "Floating Blue" glaze.  The design is borrowed from a chamsa found online.  I've seen it used as clip art in several places and I don't know who designed it.

This is the original image.  I left off the fish and the Hebrew (mazel, luck).

Practice Molds for the Summer of Bith

These were made from a mold of a Bith action figure.  I have several Bith-related projects planned including a sculpture, flat Bith wall masks, and a set of flat wall hangings based on some Halloween decorations from the 1940s depicting a band of black cats playing a variety of instruments.  I was also considering a menorah with molds of the Bith figure.

Hairy Demon Clown Vase WIP

View the finished Hairy Demon Clown Cup here.

Tonight I had planned to make a "Wampa Devotion," which would have been a small sculpture with a molded wampa face.  This is what I ended up with instead.

The Hairy Reptile Snowman

View the finished Wampa Cup here.

Tonight I consulted my list of clay projects and selected "Wampa Devotion."  It was intended to be a small grotesque sculpture with a molded wampa face.  The wampa is of course the hairy reptile snowman that assaults Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back, thereby explaining the facial scars from Mark Hamill's car accident within the Star Wars universe.

Instead I ended up with a Wampa Chalice.  I considered adding the tusks, but decided it didn't need them.

Nothing Exudes Normalcy Like a Doily

View the finished Medium Normal Menorah here.

This is the first in a series of "normal" menorahs.  By normal, I mean no baby heads, no trilobites, and no mutated Star Wars references, just nice, non-threatening geometrical patterns such as this pattern of concentric circles made by pressing a doily into the clay.  Nothing exudes normalcy like a doily.

Spiked Mask Devotion WIP

View the finished Spiked Mask Devotion here.

This object is about 6 inches tall.  It has a squash-like shape and a non-symmetrical pattern of spikes.  The entity inside the squash was made from a mold of a mask and the tentacles of some cephalopod monstrosity or Cryonex, the Elemental Prince of Evil Cold Creatures from the AD&D Fiend Folio.

Cryonex, Elemental Prince of Evil Cold Creatures.  I believe the illustrator is Emmanuel.  The AD&D Fiend Folio has long been a great inspiration to me.

Slab Menorah With Trilobites WIP

View the finished Trilobite Menorah here.

This is, as the title indicates, a slab menorah with trilobites.  They should look better once the corn starch burns off in the kiln.  Before firing, it's 11.75 inches long and 6 inches high, not counting the enclosure for the shamus.

White Chef WIP

View the finished White Chef here.

In December, I bought two chef figurines at a dollar store.  The first one was a crude representation of a human figure.  I made a clay interpretation and it became The Red Chef.  The other one is a little more detailed, but it was missing its right hand.

The White Chef was more challenging to sculpt, but I'm happy with how it came out.  It has a lot of small pieces attached and its chances for survival are not ideal.

I spent some time trying to decide what to do with the missing right hand in my interpretation.  Someone suggested a skull.  I considered a platter with an octopoid monstrosity on it.  I also considered a hook.  I ended up with a hand puppet resembling a miniature version of the chef.

Chamsa 105

I've been using this shape for chamsas for a while. The original has a pattern of curves, a pair of fish, and the Hebrew word for luck, "mazel." I managed to fit everything except the fish.

Day of the Protists

These were meant to be part of a Tarot deck illustrated with clay. 

Paramecium:

Euglena:

Mystery Protist:

Spare Chloroplast from the euglena:

Small Commission Chamsas

These are 1.5 inch chamsas with holes at both ends so they can be incorporated into jewelry.  I made 36 and the commission was for 9.  The rest are still available.

Large Phallic Pot WIP

This is a tall, phallic slab pot.  I recently watched The Wicker Man again.  I like the scene in the classroom in which the teacher asks the significance of the May Pole and all the young female students enthusiastically raise their hands and shout, "Phallic symbol!"

Trinary Devotion

This is a small (6.5 inches tall) clay sculpture of a tree-like entity with three molded doll faces.

Small Slab Menorah With Snakes and Eyes

This is a small (6.5 inches long, 5 inches tall) slab menorah with a pattern of snakes and eyes on it.  I couldn't get the measurements of the slabs to come out right and ended up forcing them together instead of carefully fitting them, so it's a little irregular.  It's colored with copper carbonate, which comes out green when applied lightly and a dull metallic gray when applied more heavily, with an off-white glaze on top of it.

Blue Spiral Slab Menorah

This is a commissioned menorah made from slabs of clay.  It's 12.5 inches long and 7 inches tall.

New Body for Aberrant Warthog Pot

I finished the Aberrant Warthog Pot back in February.  It's a sculpted warthog head on a tower of small clay cups.  I thought the cups were too primitive and also, they didn't fit together well and the tower seemed unstable.  I made a new pot for the sculpture.  The form is slightly less crude and the glaze came out very nice (although I missed a few spots on the inside).  The head still doesn't fit right.

The original pot consisting of (barely) nested cups on the left and the new pot on the right:

Inside of the pot showing the places I missed with the glaze and the lovely irregularity of the rim:

Chamsas 102, 103, and 104

Three large chamsas:

Chamsa 102

Chamsa 103

Chamsa 104

Rounded Rectangle Rune Stones

This is a set of clay rune stone with the runes carved into the clay.  I glazed them in two groups.  The black glaze dripped into the carved lines in the first firing and came out with a texture that looks like drops of water in the second firing.  Next time I want to try to decorate them with slip (liquid clay).

The rune stones are 1 inch by 2 inches and about a quarter inch thick.

Demon Pot With Skulls

Source image: