I want to make a tall ceramic sculpture

[Display Name]

I want to make a 4-6 ft tall sculpture. I don't have access to a kiln or a studio with which to fire/glaze clay. I read somewhere that you can fire the pieces of clay separately but I still don't know how to attach them together. If someone could provide some answers for me I would be very grateful.

[Bill Kielb]

When throwing you could make stackable with alignment tabs / reveals, holes for alignment pins. To make semi permanent I have seen holes for screws that match up to holes where a wooden plug has been installed. Blind hole toggles, epoxy ..... just some ideas that may spark your ideas.

[Display Name]

Thanks for the suggestions, but wouldn't the piece look segmented if it was connected like this? Do I just have to make a very clean cut in order to make the sculpture seem like one piece?

[Pres]

Any sculptural piece of size requires considerable planning and engineering in the design phase. This may include the creation of maquettes to test the concept. As @Bill Kielbhas said, there are several ways to create sectional larger designed pieces. Other considerations in the design process will include the environment the sculpture will be in, indoor, outdoor, or wet/dry environments. As with all ceramic, wet, cold and heat, can create problems as the clay will absorb some amount of water in unglazed areas, cold freezing there will cause cracking.

I have thrown with coil throwing methods pieces that were taller than 6', and fired them in a college kiln at Penn State. These were large enough to handle 8'. and were gas fired. NOne of them were intended for outdoor environments, so had some bare clay areas with the glaze areas.

Your project will require some thought to construction.:

• Interior support frame of metal pipe or threaded rod
• overlapping sections of cut sections, caulk or no caulk
• Base plate anchor for structure and camouflaging facade
• Stability, as you don't want something falling on a child.

There are other considerations you would run into as you go, but I cannot think of them right now.

 

best,

Pres 

[Bill Kielb]

1 hour ago, Display Name said:

Thanks for the suggestions, but wouldn't the piece look segmented if it was connected like this? Do I just have to make a very clean cut in order to make the sculpture seem like one piece?

That could mean you prefer the pin approach but often to make seams  disappear between different sections often leads to obvious visual segments using pins and attempting to make the joints perfectly mate. They generally won’t in color, texture or shape after firing.  @Pres is spot on with planning. Many larger pieces I have seen were produced in sections but the transitions were planned  to be pleasing to the eye and disguise the obvious transition. Reliefs, offsets, undercuts all with texture changes are common techniques to make obvious transitions near invisible.

[Min]

Have a look at how Beth Cavener Stichter joins her sculptures, if you don't plan on glazing yours her methods might work for you. Cavener Stichter makes some really large pieces (up to 2400 lbs), they are cut apart then supported while being single fired then joined with a marine grade paste epoxy then the seams covered with Fixit Sculpt which is a clay + epoxy paste which can be tinted to match the sculpture claybody. Some of her process here.