Elephant Clouds Reassembled Ring Teapot

With this Reassembled Ring Teapot and “Bird Of Paradise Reassembled Ring Teapot” I was experimenting with making wide cross-section rings in two parts. First I made a wide flat ring on the potter’s wheel with a slanting vertical rim along the outside edge. Then I made a second flat ring of the same inside and outside diameter as the first ring. I dried them both to the leather-hard stage, then attached the second flat ring with clay slip to the outside vertical wall of the first ring, and gently pressed down on the inside diameter of the flat ring with the wheel spinning until it slanted down like a very wide funnel. I bonded the inner diameter rims of the top flat ring and the bottom ring With clay slip, thus completing the hollow ring, which now had a wide triangular cross-section. I cut this big wide ring with wavy knife cuts into two pieces and reassembled them into the teapot you see, mounting them on an oval base. I built the spout out of slabs to echo the compositional feeling of the teapot body, added the pulled handle low on the left, and made the lid finial to look like a cloud of steam spiraling upward. I glazed this teapot a soft blue color, and thought it looked like floating clouds. So many people told me that they get the mood or sense of an elephant’s ear and trunk from viewing this teapot, that I named it “Elephant Clouds.”

18” Tall x 16” Wide x 8” Deep
Cone 10 Reduction Firing
Price: $3,200