Photos and reporting by Robert Kokenyesi, Ceramic Artist, Beachfront Pottery, Godfrey, IL, 62035, USA.  If you enjoyed this post, then give me a “like” on my Facebook page.      There is additional information about Beachfront Pottery on my web site.

The Idea

I like the concept and the resulting shape of the “Feeding Frenzy” series.  In an earlier post I described the process of making such a sculpture from modular elements.  My idea was that the “Feeding Frenzy” shape could be translated into a functional piece, perhaps a bowl.   The sculpture itself can’t serve as a functional bowl, because in the middle of the sculpture there is a “mound” of overlaid edges of the modules.  This is one consequence of that modular construction, and so I had to get around that when designing a functional piece.

The Effort and the Resulting Pieces

The design for a “Feeding Frenzy” bowl aims to retain the swirling feel, and the picture of sharks on sharkfin-like extensions that point upward.

 

The bowl is no longer a modular construction. I cut the pattern from single sheet of white earthenware clay; on the left I removed some oft he extra clay from the pattern.  On the right is the clay sheet placed over a slump mold, and placed into a drying box.

 

 

 

 

 

The bisque fired bowl is glazed. Here you have to zoom in to see the shark-shaped stickers I cut out and placed onto  the bisque bowl.  Once the background glaze is poured over the bowl, the glaze will not stick to  the bowl.  After the background glaze dries, I peel off those stickers, and paint glaze onto those unglazed shark-shaped spots.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here you see the what happens to those unglazed shark-shaped spots.  The colors within the shark represent three glazes that are painted onto those shark shapes by hand.  The inside and outside of the bowl have shark shapes, and tilting the bowl just right helps a great deal with the hand-glazing.

 

 

Here is the sight I see when I open the kiln after glaze firing the bowl.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These three images are showing different angles pf the same bowl.