Pieces from the wheel

Watch the wobble fade — browse batch by batch.

The backlog batch. Everything too big for batch four's broken, borrowed kiln time queued up, waited a season, and has now come through the door at once — eighteen pieces glazed, and the shelf visibly changing weight class. There are bowls here thrown from two kilograms of clay, a jug twice the tonnage of the Sou'wester, and a whole new trick: pieces thrown in two parts and joined, stacking chalices, hourglasses and one trumpet wearing every glaze in the studio simultaneously. The glazes, perhaps sensing the occasion, staged a mutiny — one bowl flatly refused to be green, one chalice played freeform jazz, and gravity redrew a vase mid-throw — and the potter, wiser by five firings, kept every ending. Even the feud escalated: a new plate went wonky rather than concede, and made it to the shelf uncracked, which counts as a win on points. Fifteen stand here today; two are back in the glaze queue for a second opinion, and one is still at large, presumed hiding, with a search party scheduled for Sunday. The kiln broke. The work didn't.