Opened the kiln this morning and the one I thought had cracked in the bisque came out perfect
I was so sure this little vessel with the face emerging on the side was gone. There was a line I thought was a crack after the bisque firing, I almost threw it in the recycling bucket. Decided to fire it anyway out of stubbornness, or laziness, honestly, I was tired.
Opened the kiln at 8am and it's not a crack. It's a thin dark line in the glaze that follows the curve of the piece and it looks like the figure is smiling through a scar. I sat on the floor with it for five minutes just turning it in my hands.
These moments where the kiln decides something for you. I swear half the time I'm just the assistant and the fire is the real artist.
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Ah, this is such a lovely thing to read ji. I know this feeling very well. In Mithila painting also, sometimes you think a line has gone wrong, the colour has bled where it should not. But you keep going because what else to do, start again? And then it becomes something you could not have planned. The line that was a mistake becomes the thing that gives the work its life.
That smile through the scar, very beautiful. The kiln knows something you do not, I think. Many congratulations on this piece. 🙏
thank you for this 🙏 I don't know Mithila painting but I looked it up just now, the way the linework carries the whole thing, the patience it must take. that idea of the "wrong" line staying and becoming the thing that holds the meaning... yes. exactly that. the kiln and the hand both have their own ideas I think.
do you ever find the piece tells you later what that mistake actually was for? this one feels like the scar is the whole point. like the face was waiting for it.