My Fountain

Voila! Here is my fountain in it's completed state.

Last year I created a new set of tiles.

I thought I would simply put them on a wall like the tiles I created for this wall in 2015. 

Then it occurred to me to make  them into a fountain.

 I made a simple unfired clay maquette of my thought.

I didn't know how to make this happen. 

A friend gave me his used pump. yay!

Another friend suggested I build it out with a planter box 

and line it with backer board.

 My husband and I found a shapely half of a table in the street and took it home to use as the main tiled back.

 I made a paper pattern of the shape to make the tiles to fit last December for the back of the fountain.

Our neighbor, who is magnificent with tools said he could build the planter type box in the front of the half table and seal it with backer board.

It started to rain in Los Angeles for months and the project went on hold.

Then last month, July 2017, he did the construction. It was great. 

I was in the midst of two months of joy throwing pots with a (borrowed for the summer) potters wheel. I had to make several more batches of tiles to fit the entire project.

These tiles are the interior front wall of the basin batch, the last batch.

These tiles are one of 4 bunny end tile groups in their beginning clay state. 

I roll out the clay into slabs and cut the tiles, line them up together and then I draw with a chopstick to get the incised lines. I letter and number them in their grid on the back so I don't get confused because they go through  two firings and get mixed.

You can see the interior glazed and installed end bunny in the photo above this one.

 There are bunnies on both ends, inside and out.

For the bottom tiles and the bunny tiles, I used Cone 6 instead of Cone 06 Lowfire because I was making HAREWARE, my functional Celadon Summer Pottery and it was on my mind and something I was working with.

I toyed with the idea of irregular tiles for the bottom, even bisque fired a few but instead I used their curvilinear shapes as drawing templates onto the regular square format tiles I started with.

The last bits of tiles are for the edges. 

This is the small Cress kiln I have been working with.

We got it all together, yay! But then it leaked, Argh! 

 A few more sealing steps later, We are overjoyed that it works. 

And another shot with my Summer Celadon HAREWARE and my Fountain project. Did I mention that we have a bunny? She's a great studio bunny, loves to nibble on cardboard and grass and run around.