These are candle cups.
By Joyce Li.
A throw body
with a snowflake handle
carefully carved and attached.
It suddenly occur to me that not everyone might have caught on the relationship with pottery between the image of this poster and the “Throw A Party” theme.
We have been playing with the word “throw”.
To throw a party, as we know it, is to give or to held a party.
For a potter, to throw refers to form or to shape a piece of clay on a potter’s wheel. Under the sensitive hands of the potter, the clay on the spinning wheel is centered and formed into the desired shape. The center turning helps the potter to form a completely uniform circular vessel. But why would it be call “throwing”?
In old English, “thrāwan”, the word which “throw” originated from means to twist or to turn. The Latin “terere”, the root of the German word “drehen” means to rub. Where the Greek word “teirein” means to wear out. All of which are the action of the potter for throwing the vessel, so in a way, the word “throw” has more to do with the pottery than how we ordinary understand the word today.
Everytime I see this box it just brings a smile across my face. It just made me think of a happy oyster. It will make a brilliant place for storing all the little treasure that would become pearls over time.
Orgainc shape box by King Fung; stoneware glaze, made by simple two parts pinching and alteration. Finger indent works provide an easy grab for opening the box.
DIA90xH90mm, Hong Kong
This round bottle is made by Chris Lo, founder of the Cobo Ceramic Workshop.
The clay body uses a groggy clay which can stand for the thermo shock created during the raku post reduction firing. The matte black carbonized surfaces and black crackles are the main characteristic of raku firing. The round shape gives a stable and strong body structure to avoid cracking.
Raku was started in Japan by Chojiro in the 16th century; unlike other type of pottery firing where they are loaded into a cold kiln with temperature rinsing slowly, taking anywhere from 8-24 hrs or longer, when the designated temperature is reached the heating is turned off and the contents allow to naturally cool down until they can be removed with bare hands. With raku, the pottery are loaded into a hot kiln where the desired temperature is reached in a much short time, can be as short as 15 mins). The pottery is then removed from the hot kiln with the aids of tongs and put into a container of combustible material (sawdust, leaves, etc) to be smoked, the surface is carbonized reacting with the glaze and the clay giving the unique matt black unglazed clay and crackled glazed surfaces.
DIA90xH100mm, Hong Kong
For the “Throw A Party” event, ceramic artist King Fung, instructor of the Cobo Ceramic Workshop, has created for the event a series of song mugs. A song singing glazed stoneware which interact with the user.
Stoneware glazed, body and handle are made by throwing and joined together after trimming. A small clay ball was put inside the hollow handle to give it a ring.
Continuing with the Something Old Something New theme and our collaboration with Soil, we now have another venture:
Cobo X Soil X Mountain Folkcraft
“Throw A Party!”
A selection of pottery works produced from the studio (Chris, King + the students) will be available at Mountain Folkcraft. All the works are handmade and unique.
Cobo Ceramic Workshop is a pottery workshop founded in 1995 by Chris Lo, together with King Fung regular classes are held as well as commissioned work for corporation and individual clients.
This is the workshop I attend my classes and personally I think it is the perfect place to learn pottery, love it!