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You just look at the very first piece I made when I started my potters “careerâ€, 14 years ago. It is hand built (coil technique) and bellied out with my fingers. The shape is erratic, the walls too thick, the handle too big…. But it not only looks like a water jar, it is also used as one. Its home is my Italian studio and I use it every day to pour water when I’m thirsty.

Now how about you?

 

Do you still have your FIRST, and if it is functional, do you use it? And…... would you show us a picture?

 

Evelyne

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My very first piece is in the garage in a moving box, and I have no idea which one, but heck yes, I still have it! ^_^ I use it for my paint water, usually. These are my second and third wheel pieces... HAHA that smaller

one is literally 1.5 inches tall. :D Back then, I thought the opposite one was huge! Oh, lawd... My mom has kept these amongst her prized possessions for years. Oh, they're ^10 reduction. :3

 

GAWD that HANDLE, HAHAHAHA :D

 

Oh, yeah. I should prolly mention I got these three-in-total pieces out of TWELVE clay balls. Man, I was sooo bad...I got super frustrated and quit for years. Glad I started it up again! :3

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well i had my first little pinch pot until i broke it about a year ago. still have a piece of it.  I have a few of the very early things. I had some things I had bisqued 30 years ago and hauled them around. then I raku fired them about 10 years ago. that was fun.  still have them.  rakuku

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Pres: so you did mugs as first pieces. When I give a piece to my Mum, she's doing it in a shrine instead of using it. Are your parents the same?

 

Guinea: thank you for the pics (and your comment ;) ). Are you always "throwing in the towel" so quickly? 3 pieces out of 12 clay balls in the first session isn't bad!

 

rakuku: so sad you broke the first piece. I like pinching! Are you still doing it too, or are you mainly throwing?

 

Evelyne

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I don't tolerate failure well. I'm probably one of the most self-critical people you'll ever meet, and since those were about half the pieces I got out of the whole quarter, yes, I told the wheel to go to a hot place. I then proceeded to make gorgeous handbuilt things. :P Why waste time on something I was clearly getting nothing out of, when I could focus on what I was good at? Some people are just not natural throwers, including me. I did eventually take up the wheel again, but it was on my own terms.

 

And for the record, I'm being eaten alive by a crippling degenerative disease, but I'm still throwing. I might not be able to make as much as before, but I'm trying. I think that is the opposite of someone who quits everything easily. I'm even underglazing today.

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First and Last pinch pots, also the first and last time to use underglaze.

First 2 slab constructions. All this done a long, long time ago.

We can tell it was long ago by the phone! OMG ... You had to put your pinkie in the slot and turn it!

My grandma had a rotary phone! Man, talk about oldschool. I remember getting so mad if I messed up a number, haha--especially if it was long-distance and had a lot of zeroes! :D

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I love this topic and all of your first work. Here is my first coil pot made in 1962 in my 8th grade ceramics class. It is about 3 inches by 3 inches. I've previously discussed how very scientific I was and all the lines had to be perfectly straight and even. I think I've come a long way since then.

 

Paul

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Fun question , Evelyne! It is soon long ago.I don't have many of my first pieces. My sisters have a few like my first copper red blue combo on a bowl with a frozen drip  from 1967 and a covered jar with purplish crystals foom the same year. Maybe they should take them to Antiques Roadshow!

 

Marcia

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Here are two of my first pieces (probably '80 or '81) My favorite first effort was a large face mask but that was lost in the shuffle a long time ago. I don't make mugs much, but I liked this one, from a set of two. The piece with the chiseled wells is made of two bodies that I formulated - the gray is a mix of Jordan and porcelain, but I forget what the other primary composition was. Truth be told, I would not want to part with either. I have been lugging them around from state to state, taken them on the roller coaster, and resisted all urges to give them away along the way.

 

I LIKE them, and as such they have lifted me up at times when I despaired of ever getting back to doing anything creative...just knowing that once I could and did make things that I liked...and that other people liked...and that seemed to be deemed worthy of being called art, in the best sense of accepting critical standards for craft and creativity...was enough to help me slog through another 30-year day of trying to help some poor guy with DT's make it through the night before he snuck off AMA, or not haul off and smack the "crack ho" for smacking her kid so hard-again-or dealing with the unbelievable bureaucratic BS of-dare I say it?- the NH public mental health system, while I sold my soul to pay my rent LOL I have kept those first mugs and that first table piece in front of my face all these years, never knowing that I would indeed end up with my hands back in clay! 

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Yes I have my 1st pinch pot made in 3rd  grade when we learned about the California missions in public school.Its a low fire pot in storage somewhere? Its low fire white with lines and looks like early cave man dig.

I also have a jug from early 1971 in high school- my senior year

Its been on the floor in our bathroom for many decades-its held up well for low fire (not any part broken) it is dated on bottom 2/8/1971 M Cortright-it shows well how not to sign a pot. It says XXX brew on side-its carved letters are about 1/4 deep so its a heavy jug.

Mark

 

 

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Sometimes you never know when you'll run into an old pot. I posted this before from another QOTW. 

This was my first teapot circa 1967. An old college friend took it from Phila. to San Francisco. One of my students found it when she was visiting my old friend in the early 1980s and posted a photo in my classroom above the sink in Montana. Small world!

Very funny note attached. Just goes to show you we are started from somewhere.

 

 

 

 

Marcia

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This is my first piece - made in a hand building ceramics class in college. . . It is a pinch pot made out of terra cotta and has engobe and clear glaze. I have used this as my pen cup through every job I have had since college.

I love it tremendously  :wub: even if it is really wonky.

 

WP 20150519 11 45 45 Pro


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Wow, we are on page two already not 24h after I posted the QOTW. Thank you all for participating and having the courage to show us your first or second or third made piece! It took courage for me too. My water jug is..... well.... nice enough....

 

Chris: now, not newbies anymore, we know that porcelain shrinks and shrinks and shrinks in the kiln. I was searching the school kiln many times for my porcelain pieces. Nice design on your bowl. Do you use it for anything? Oh and the ceramics picture of that Lady is just gorgeous!!

 

Guinea: we learn only through failure!

 

dhPotter: those are nice firsts. Now please tell me that you covered a phone with clay.... or you have to tell me the secret of how to twirl clay to a real looking phone cord....

 

PaulCH: thank you for the link and the pic of your mustache mug. I find the name of this mug hilarious.

 

Diesel: what a beautiful turquoise glaze! Is the bowl pinched? And, oh yes, don't ever follow (all the) rules!

 

PaulR: your bowl reminds me of the Bauhaus in Germany. I like it very much!

 

alabama: we will wait patiently for the pictures. 

 

Steven: thank you for showing us that also a master has his firsts still around and is showing them. What glaze did you use? The one on the left: is the black on the bottom color, or smoke from the reduction?

 

Lee: we all need something to hold on to when life isn't just a walk in the sunshine. I am happy for you that you still have the pieces you were holding on to and they tell a story that helps you through the days. Keep working in clay!! Too bad the mask is lost. How about making a new one? A really horrible looking one to hold all the "ghosts" at bay?!

 

Mark: I have to take my hat off to you. You made this jug in high school?! Kudos!! I can't see a fault. Wonderful proportions. Maybe a bit thick, you said so yourself, but all in all - wow!

 

Joel: that is a beautiful sculpture! The blue is so matt on the picture. Is it a matt glaze or cobalt?

 

Marcia: well, I think a lot of us will be jealous. You are a natural! If this is your first tea pot, I will never do tea pots again. I couldn't come close....

 

karenk: and a beautifully made mug it is. It is kind of impressionistic. Are you using it as an every day mug?

 

aperhapshand: welcome to the QOTW topic! I like the glaze design on your pen-cup! And here we have the word wonky again... tststs.  Maybe it's only a bit tipsy... You know, isn't it a good feeling to have pieces around us that tell stories from the beginning of our passion?!

 

 

Keep the FIRSTS comming!

 

Evelyne

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