Spiked Mask Devotion

This is part of a series of sculptures called Devotions.  Most of them are simple sculptural objects with molded faces.  

Hairy Demon Clown Cup

This is a clay slab vessel (actually two slab vessels attached) with a monstrous, clown-like face and a hairy texture.  I would like to think that it would be used to contain something truly repellant to all decent people.

The Hairy Demon Clown Cup's redeeming feature is its cheerily colored top.  The colors are a tribute to a ceramic bong my parents owned at one point.

Wampa Cup

This is a slab vessel (actually two attached slab vessels) with a face modeled after the Kenner Wampa figure.  The Wampa was the vicious humanoid monster from The Empire Strikes Back which was responsible for making Luke Skywalker's face slightly less pretty.  It was barely shown in the original film, but given a little more screen time in the much reviled revised version from the late nineties.  The face of the figure bares little resemblance to the monster in the film and I would like to reiterate that the face on the cup is based on the toy and not the on-screen wampa.

Kenner's Wampa figure:

The White Chef

The White Chef is modeled on a plastic statue of a fat, mirthful chef which I bought in a dollar store in December 2012.  The original figure was missing its right hand and, after some careful deliberation, I decided to make my version with a hand puppet where its right hand would be.  The White Chef is the companion piece to The Red Chef, also based on a dollar store figure.

The face was left unglazed.

The White Chef and his dollar store counterpart:

 

Large Phallic Pot

This is a slab pot 13.5 inches tall in the shape of an exaggerated human male organ of procreation. Just for reference, there is a whole phylum of marine worms called priapulids (meaning penis shaped) which have been around since the Cambrian period, many hundreds of millions of years before human beings and human male penises. The fruiting bodies of many kinds of fungi have also been known to use a similar shape.

This piece is intended for ritual use in modern fertility cults or as a container to hold cookies.

Trilobite Menorah

This is a black slab menorah with green trilobites.  The trilobites are molded from a fossil.  Since clay shrinks when fired, I made smaller versions by making an impression of the fossil in clay, using the impression as a mold, and then making an impression from the smaller trilobite.  Each iteration was a little more distorted and became unrecognizable after the fourth time.

Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes

These are clay wall hangings depicting the members of the band in the cantina on Tattoine in Star Wars.  Five of the seven members of the band are represented:  Figrin D'an, Doikk Na'ts, Tedn Dahai, Tech M'or, and Nalan Cheel.  Do you think all Bith look the same?  Are you a humancentric speciesist?

Little Neshaminy

I traveled to Pennsylvania and brought some small clay objects to set free.  I had planned on leaving something in New York, but I forgot to bring it.  I did, however, get to set free this Warthog's Eye in the Little Neshaminy, the creek near my parents' house in Bucks County, PA.

Lucius

I like to know what becomes of my work once it has left my possession.  This is a Cat Column in my brother's house in Philadelphia.  It has lost an ear and some teeth in the last few years.  Here also is the perpetrator, the cat-shaped demon known as Lucius.

Medium Normal Menorah

Here is the second in my series of normal menorahs, meaning menorahs decorated in a way that anyone can enjoy.  This one, for example, has a nice, wholesome concentric circle pattern on both sides.  Not to worry, though, because I'm planning some aberrant menorahs in the near future to have ready for Hannukah 2013.

The Medium Normal Menorah is 8 inches long, 7 inches tall, and 2 inches wide.

Chamsas 107 - 111

My most recent series of chamsas:

Chamsa 107

Chamsa 108

Chamsa 109

Chamsa 110

Chamsa 111

July Kiln Firing

I fired a kiln full of all of the work I've accumulated in June and July.  Once again there were no explosions.  I'm looking forward to shifting into the glazing phase once I'm back in Tucson.

Bust of Ogremoch WIP

View the finished Bust of Ogrémoch here.

The large, hollow slab sculpture of Ogremoch, the Prince of Evil Earth Elementals, did not survive completely intact.  It was doing fine until I started to trim off some of the excess clay around the arms.  They were apparently load-bearing slabs because it started to collapse.  I removed the bottom section so now I have a bust of Ogremoch.  I left a door in the back of the head to place a small candle and I'm hoping to use it as a jack-o-lantern this Halloween.  I'm also hoping to try again with a full figure of Ogremoch after the yearly pilgrimage to the homeland.

Bust of Ogremoch with the discarded lower section to the right:

Small Normal Menorah

This is the first in a series of "normal" menorahs -- that is, menorahs without any overly weird decorations which might make them unsaleable to the general public.  This one is 6.5 inches long, 5.5 inches tall, and 1.5 inches wide.  It has a pattern from the skeleton of a cactus (probably a prickly pear).

First Attempt at the Prince of Evil Earth Creatures

View the finished Bust of Ogrémoch here.

I was looking through the first edition AD&D Fiend Folio for projects and I came upon the image of Ogremoch, the Prince of Evil Earth Creatures.  It looked like something I could do using the slab method I've been using to build pots.  I made him in three parts last night.

Tonight I put the pieces together.  It's over two feet tall.  I managed to get it up into the top shelf in the closet, but by the time I got it up there, it wasn't balanced enough to stand on its own.  I'm thinking I'm probably going to take it apart, recycle most of the clay (I might keep the head) and start again when I come back from Pennsylvania.  It might work better if the bottom piece is larger and if I put slabs of clay in between each part.  If by some chance it does survive, I'm planning on adding hands and shoulders.

Doll Devotion WIP

View the finished Doll Devotion here.

The face is a mold from a wooden statue I bought in a thrift store.  Devotion refers to these clay objects that make use of molds.  I was calling the smaller ones atavisms and the larger ones somehow took on the name of devotions.

Large Normal Menorah WIP

View the finished Large Normal Menorah here.

This is the third and largest of my series of normal menorahs.  It's about 15 inches long, 7 inches high, and 1.5 inches wide.  It's decorated with the spiral shape from a Bride of Frankenstein Halloween candle.

20 Eyes in My Pot

View the finished Twenty-Eyed Pot Here.

This is my seventh eye pot.  It has twenty eyes, just like in the Misfits song.  The Misfits are universally adored, so maybe I could use that in marketing this pot.  I could claim it was a tribute to "20 Eyes" although it's not.

I spend a lot of time thinking about titles for my clay pieces.  They're usually very literal and descriptive, but it amuses me to assign titles.  The title for this pot is either going to be "Eye Pot 7" or "Twenty-Eyed Pot" or even "20 Eyes in My Pot." There is a sculptor who works at the pottery studio who makes very realistic figures of women in homoerotic postures (does it count as homoerotic if a man makes images of gay women?).  He gives them mythological titles such as "Persephone as a Fractured Female Nude" and "Erotic Harpies in Waiting."  Those are not the exact titles because I don't want him to find this.  I don't mean to mock and I wish I could make realistic human figures.  A friend asked me to make something similar to a hand-shaped candle holder she saw at Pier One.  I asked her, "Do you need it to look like a human hand?"

Twelve-Eyed Pot WIP

View the finished Twelve-Eyed Pot Here.

I sold my Thirteen-Eyed Pot in my Etsy shop last week and started a new one.  This one has twelve eyes.  It came out a little larger than I was intending.