Meet the Blue Lobster: The Ceramic That Refused to Die
We’ve all been there. You’re at the wheel, totally in the zone, feeling like a pottery god… until you push your luck just a little too far.
That is exactly how this piece started. I was throwing a cylinder, got a bit too ambitious, and either overworked the clay or threw the walls paper-thin. Wham. It collapsed into a sad, lopsided, deflated heap.
Normally, that’s a one-way ticket to the reclaim bucket. But as I stared at this slumped-over clay tragic comedy, I thought, “No. You are not going to die today. In fact, you’re going to become a lobster.”
The Anatomy of a Save
Turning a ruined, squished cylinder into a fully anatomically correct crustacean was, frankly, quite the ridiculous process:
- The Metamorphosis: I had to prop open the collapsed cavern of the main body so it could eventually serve a higher purpose: a functional mobile phone speaker amplifier!
- The Extras: Once the main cavity was stable, I spent hours modeling and attaching the claws, the segmented legs, and that flared tail. By the time I was done, it actually looked like it was crawling right off the bat.
- The Musical Vibe: Because it’s a functional speaker, I wanted to give it some personality. If you look closely at its stalk eyes, I painted tiny musical notes right into the pupils.
Singing the Bubbly Blues
When it came time for glazing, I started thinking about its personality. An artistic savior-project like this obviously listens to jazz and the blues. So, to honor its musical taste, I used a bubble glazing technique to cover it in a mottled, textured sea of “blues.”
This is officially piece number one in my new “Refuse to Die” series. It’s proof that with a little stubbornness and a lot of attachments, a studio disaster can turn into a musical masterpiece.