Chilly

This:

Five snowflakes, destined to become mobiles like this one. Broke a piece off every single one of them between workbench and kiln. Slipped and sticked. Let's see what the kiln gods can do with them.

I have bags of clay that have lived in the greenhouse for several years, so they must have frozen at some time. Haven't noticed any difference.

It's been happening forever. Forgive me if some of the following is not historically perfect, my memory/interest isn't always up to this, but: The English spent years trying to emulate porcelain; they painted blue chinese?/japanese? scenes on their wares; they copied delftware; and that's just the pottery stuff. No doubt that every culture has been affected by every neighbouring one, or the one they invaded/were invaded by. Ad infinitum. Should we now be upset by this? Possibly, probably. Can we change history? Should we continue to steal everyone else's ideas? Probably not. Will we? I agree with Liam, "if your intent is exploitation, bad. If your intent is to create beautiful things, how can it be wrong"

Don't use it just because you have it. If you don't like it, it is cheaper to throw/give it away than spend time making stuff with it.