Wednesday, July 4, 2018

Home Court Advantage


 Got an early start on the day -- out in the shop at 5 ayem in the morning making vases. After 40 years of doing this you'd think I'd have learned something. I have. I learned that after 40 years I can still have a bad day at something I've done a million times.

I couldn't throw the vases at my boss's house on her wheel with her lighting and her stool. Making anything else I can sort of adjust to her equipment. But the vase form is just too demanding -- especially in porcelain. Porcelain de-laminates. If pulled to fast, it separates into "sheets" of clay that come off in your hands. But if you play it too safe, you can't get the height. Or you get a twist.

Her wheel has a pedal with a very un-smooth throw. Imagine a car with an accelerator pedal that sticks. You're in a parking lot and you are inching into your space but you need to accelerate just a tad....except that the pedal sticks so that the force needed to un-stick it is too much and you run into the car ahead.

It's like that without the hitting-the-car-in-front-of-you thing. If you're sensing a twist in the clay, you decelerate the wheel immediately but gradually. A sticking pedal decelerates it too completely and then the compensation for that is in speeding back up too rapidly.

I tried nine times and failed. That's the most failure since the months in 1976 when I was first learning.

So I got out early.

   My wheel. 
       My stool. 
           My lighting.


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