And now, the fun part...

By now, every step of the casting process had come together and with that a weekly rhythm of work has been formed. Not surprisingly it takes more time than I expected; it would be difficult to get more than two umbrellas finished in one week. I cast on Monday and take out both pieces by Tuesday. The studio, which used to feel spacious is crowded with molds, drying pieces on kiln shelves,wet pieces I'm still working on under plastic tents, and the barrels and equipment that hold and move the slip. Here is a picture of The Awesome mold with the lift that had raised the piece up still inside right after removing the cast from it.
Tuesday and Wednesday, I work on putting the design into the umbrellas. Each has a map of a real place, a city or a neighborhood, a path or an area that I run around in. This is another time-sensitive part of the process: the designs are done as a shellac resist, wiping away the clay from the areas around the resist pattern with a wet sponge. It takes a few hours of wiping to get the depth I need, and it is the safest to do this while the porcelain is still wet so that it does not crack from the sudden expansion when water is introduced.
The rest of the week is spent on carving, and more carving, and still more carving... and cleaning the designs. Also on doing odd tasks, like cleaning molds, rearranging furniture, finalizing the new templates for the maps to be carved next, building firing molds, etc., which are necessary but always feel like as if I was not doing anything. The carving part is where I can relax and go with the flow... It is fun to trace the street patterns of familiar places but also to get lost in them. Repetitive? No problem.
Fridays, it looks like, will be the days to load the kiln and start the firing. The first went in yesterday. Being a test, I trying my best to keep my expectations low. I'd like to fire the bone china to full maturity (about 1240-1250 degrees Celsius) but it is guaranteed to warp, slump, crack or just plain self-destruct at these high temperatures. These first pieces went in on a bed of sand. Probably insufficient as a support... A firing mold might be a safer solution, but first I need to see what happens in the current firing. The idea started with a discarded, broken umbrella that I found. It would work just fine if the kiln (gently!) did the same for the sculptures. After all, there has to be a good reason why I'm doing this in clay and not some other, more direct and less technically involved material!