Continuing the "chimneypots" project

The highlight of the week was stumbling, in my getting-enough-steps obsession, upon a shop-studio space about 10 mins walk away that "rents out" kiln space. They'll let me try out my porcelain pots in their kiln. Some experimentation with kiln temperatures and perhaps bisque firing will be necessary...

Now it just needs some pots sewing, dipping, drying, and taking there for the trials. Not exactly the work of a moment, as I'm thinking of doing a series of much the same thing processed in different, controlled and recorded, ways, to figure out What Works Best. 

But somehow, and crazily, I think this part of the project needs all previous pots to be got out, looked at critically, recorded, sorted, and put "somewhere" for storage or display. Which would be a big job, and would probably make me feel very muddled if I dived right in. 

So let's be methodical, and especially "start where you are with what you have" - there are sewn but not dipped pots in various places, they - and what I remember of the fired pots - can be the basis for decisions and/or trials.

1. Gather sewn pots

2. Evaluate - is there a quickly-made shape* or size or material or embellishment-design that can be done in a series

3. Decide - what variations in the making are to be "tested"

4. Make - a sufficiency of sewn pots

5. Dip them and dry them

6. Record - the variations in the making, and to which pot(s) they apply

7. Take the pots to be fired.

I hesitate to put a timescale on this, because the woodblock printing is also ongoing, and is currently occupying the workbench, and I want to continue with it for a while -

Lots of possibilities!

* Having gathered all the sewn pots (strike while the iron is hot!) I have found a shape etc and am about to list some of the variations...

Top left, the sinamay (abaca) from which most of the pots are made: it resists collapsing when covered in wet clay. 

Bottom left, the two plain vessels are made by simply sewing together bias-cut bits of the sinamay. They can be embellished in ways that link up with their subsequent treatment in terms of firing or whatever.

Bottom right, five heavily-embroidered vessels that will probably escape dipping and might get mixed into "pot tableaux" ... if it ever comes to displaying them ...

(Thinking about grouping the pots, I'm considering how the groupings might be linked to stories that are already known, or whether a title for the grouping would be enough to generate the story...)