E W E - A N D - Y O U

occasionally, chris hates something I make. okay, that is not exactly right. occasionally, he hates a direction I take on something I am working on; I alter it in some way that he thinks is just not right.  usually when that happens, it ends up being something that everyone else loves. or at least that's how it seems, so it has become something we joke about. it doesn't happen often, but it does happen every once in a blue moon.

now usually, this about design work. this time, though, it was pottery. I built a fun blockhead sheep and when I asked him his opinion about adding arms and legs to it, I thought he said no legs, but yes to arms. which is where I had been leaning. the legs were just awkward. the arms added something it needed. so I added arms.

evidently I misunderstood. there was definitely a No Arms or Legs Club, president, chris thurman. so I made a second blockhead sheep with no arms. in the end, that was a very good thing because while transporting the "armed" (and then still wet clay) ewe, some idiot car stopped in front of me for no good reason in the middle of the intersection and I had to slam on my brakes, toppling the armed ewe to the floor of my vehicle.

words were screamed.

they were not nice words.

after some major surgery, plenty of worry and weeks of trying to dry her slowly enough so she wouldn't crack more, the armed ewe was saved, but the cracks did end up showing when she was fired. (however, I kind of like the crack. it gives her some nice character.) the "unarmed" sheep (which I named "you" after chris) turned out lovely as well, in his perfectness. to be honest, I was sort of waiting to see which one would sell first in the show (just to satisfy my own totally competitive and WRONG curiosity of who was "right,") but much to my surprise, neither sold.

so here they are, hand-built and lovingly sculpted out of stoneware. they each have iron oxide  applied under the glaze to give them the contrast aging. I put white cloud glaze over eggshell wash to see if it might give it more texture (white cloud is a bumpy glaze when fired), but it didn't seem to do too much. regardless, I love them both. and I won't ask you which one you think is "right."

"ewe" is 10.5 inches tall x 12.5 inches at her widest (across the ears). signed and dated, august, 2012
"you" is slightly bigger: 11.5 inches tall x 13 inches at his widest. signed and dated, october, 2012.

$200 each

left to right: "ewe" and "you"

"ewe" and her blemish

armed

here you can see arms vs. no arms