DIY: Slab Constructed Bowl

 

Victoria from Pewabic Pottery has some advice when making a slab constructed bowl. Basically, that’s making a bowl off of a bowl mold. It’s a great craft to do with kids or on your own for fun and relaxation. Here we go:

1. Pound a ball of clay into a square shape about 3/4” thick.
2. Throw the slab at an angle to further lengthening and thinning.
3. Use light pressure with a rolling pin to smooth out any unevenness in your slab.
4. Pick up your slab with flat hands and drape over a plaster hump mold. (plaster bowl shape)
5. Gently push down slab to conform to shape of mold.
6. Smooth out with metal or plastic rib. If tools are not accessible a sponge with work also.
7. With knife, a needle tool, or something sharp cut off excess clay around lip of bowl.
8. Continue to smooth out the exterior of the form until your clay has released from mold.
9. Once clay has hardened up and begun to release from the plaster mold, gently pry off the bowl.
10. Allow to stiffen up and decorate with colored slips, underglazes, or stamps.

Victoria is wearing the Carhartt Women’s Clarksburg Sweatshirt. It is slightly fitted with triple stitched seams and perfect for a day in the studio. 

April Wagner of Epiphany Studios

When April Wagner started blowing glass she never looked back. It was hot and we don’t mean just chic. Glass blowing has been all the rage since the Romans began pushing air through the end of a hollow tube. And the technique has evolved a whole lot under the talented hands and gaze of April, who is interested in beautiful forms, color, and line.  She is often quoted saying that she is “having a love affair with the material.”  Since she was a little girl growing up in Northern Michigan, April has always had been passionate about making things with her hands. Glass is hot, sensual, and not easy to work with. It can be clear or colorful and if one is not careful, it can really burn you. But in the end the experience of making forms out of glass is a deeply personal one. She has built a thriving studio practice with a growing list of clients around the world. In her quiet studio on the outskirts of Detroit, April has learned the art of when to control the glass and when to let it go. She has a student’s mind and everyday the material leads her on a new journey with a new and sometimes unpredictable outcome. There is just no straight line in making art or blowing glass. The process is one of discovery.

Check out what the women are wearing: Women’s Norfolk Henley, Women’s Original-Fit Canvas Crawford Dungaree / Longsleeve Signature T-Shirt, Women’s Straight-Fit Slim Jean, Women’s Clarksburg Zip-Front Sweatshirt