© Kelly Winslow

Well, I suppose it has to happen to everyone at some point in their ceramic career...ya just never think it will happen to you...
But, my piece, my pride and joy, my final project for ceramics class exploded while being fired last Thursday. Maybe it wa because my teacher didn't wait long enough to fire it because I was pushing him, saying I needed it fo rthe weekend to paint for the art show judging yesterday. Maybe I just didn't hollow enough. Whether it just wasn't dry enough yet or whether it was an air bubble, I'll never know, but this is what I got. My teacher gave me back the lower body which was lacking some of the above pieces as I have mentioned and threw the rest away! Into a trash can filled with other projects (luckily there was a little divider--a piece of fake grass, but don't ask me why that was there--so I really didn't have to go through other projects). I had to sift through dirt and flowers though, again, not sure how they got there, but it was awful. I probably inhaled a gallon of dust! So I got all the pieces I could find that were big enough to be still considered pieces and last weekend--May 4-5--I started gluing and putting back together the puzzle from hell. I eventually found out I didn't have all the pieces so I don't know if I accedentally threw them away or if they were never in the trash can I went through and I actually had extra pieces yet most of them were from the inside of my sculputure. In the end tough, I got him all back together like you won't believe, stayed up until 4AM Monday night painting him, got 2 hours of sleep and headed off to school pretty dead, yet with my amamzing project. You'll have to wait until I get him back from the art show though to see him! hehe
everyone was so amazed as I walked in with him. They were all like, "You glued that?"
I was so tempted to say, "No, I smashed it with a sledge hammer and it just turned out that way "


PS: There are a bunch of little lines on my piece you may be seeing - they are scares and even though I wasn't sure about them at the time they turned out to be a life saver. They were the only thing I had to go off, besides shape, to put this puzzle back together again. This was like a puzzle with no reference and colors so lines mean the world to you at a time like that. I ened up loving the scares when I painted them too!


The After - [link]