Text: “and the bush was not consumed.”

This piece was such a saga! I spent hours painting dozens of layers of four colors of slip paint on the mug. Then I carefully carved worse and flames into the layers of slip to reveal them in depth. As the mug dried, it cracked and separated, because the mug and slip dried at a different rate (I probably should have painted on the slip before the mug even got to leather-hard stage). I bisque-fired it anyway, and then dipped the whole thing in clear glaze, hoping that the glaze would help hold everything together. I hadn’t used this particular glaze before, and I accidentally put it on too thick. I was then afraid to wash it off and start over, for fear that the mug would crack apart even more, so I fired it anyway. When the mug came out of the kiln, I saw that the glaze was so thick that it clouded over and hid most of the colors that I had painted on and carved into, muting the effect I was trying to achieve. Maybe I will try this again someday, with lessons learned.