People often ask me what the castles are made of, and they are almost always shocked when I say "Dirt." But, it is true, clay is just a specialized type of dirt, a decomposed granite-type rock. It is the stuff you curse when you find it in your garden. When wet, it is heavy, sticky and smothering to plants, having little air or organic materials in it. When dry, it is hard, shrinks, cracks and then blows around in fine dust. But, when it is dug up, analyzed, cleaned, formed, dried and slowly heated, almost to its melting point, it changes to something very different. It looses all its old qualities and gains new ones, becoming hard, durable, and if glazed, nearly waterproof. That is what makes clay wonderful for making everything from bricks to brick-a-brack.
I got interested in making something 'out of the ordinary' when a friend graduated from seminary. He was visiting and we talked about making a communion set - something different. As we browsed through a Pre-Colombian Art book, we came up with an idea.
First we decided a turtle would make a great ciborium and paten, the bread box and plate. The shell could lift off and be both the top of the box and the plate/bowl when turned over and held in your hand. But what should the chalice be? It took a while to come up with something that would go well with our "box" turtle.
Mark decided on a tree. The first was a miserable failure, it tipped, cracked and couldn't hold itself up. Back to the studio I went, mess in hand to find out from the voice of experience where I went wrong.
After that things went quite well, I made other tree goblets and chalices. When Cindy said the trees looked like they should have little critters living in them, the trees sprouted gables, doors and dormer windows. Lynn suggested I build a castle and Briar Rose Castle was born. So we all have to thank my friend, Mark Juchter, and the other potters who work at the Brambleton Center in Roanoke Virginia for getting me started on this whole adventure.
Here are the basic steps in my castle production.
A goblet is basicly a cylinder with a bowl on top. Then I carve out and add on to make a tree shape.
A castle is actually the same thing, only the cylinder is wider in diameter and the bowl is pointed, turned upside down and usually a finial is thrown on the top. Then holes are cut in and dormers are added to the roof and the cylinder is put on a slab or plate, so it has a base to plant flowers, trees and sometimes - Dragons! The roof is then attached (or not) and I cover them loosly so they dry very slowly
