The Spirit of Clay, by Laurie Erdman

For my regular readers, you will know that I went from hating handles to being fascinated by them. For my new readers, see these posts from December and February to learn more about my journey with handles.

Making handles is a big challenge.  But once I got the hang of it thanks to Gay Smith, I haven’t been able to stop myself from exploring and experimenting with them.  Swoop up or down or straight off the pot.  Crimped, smooshed or flattened.

I recently started making these forms I call letter carriers.  Low oval-ed shapes perfect for holding the mail, stationary or other desk items.  Also good for bread sticks or carrot sticks or other yummy treats.  I recently made a series of 6 and decided to use them as a handle experiment.  This is similar to what Emily Murphy did a while back with cups. This exercise is about exploring the form.  In this case, I was exploring the form of a handle.  I highly recommend this kind of exercise no matter what the aspect of a pot you want to improve.  You learn so much.

In this case, these handles are mostly decorative, although imagine the user will use them to pick up and move the piece around.  They don’t have to be large enough to fit your hand in, or even a finger.  As I continued with each set of handles, I realized that they were often more about creating negative space as opposed to functional space.

I haven’t yet decided which is my favorite and will make it into my regular design. Right now, I want to sit with all of them.  Yet, I would love thoughts from my readers.

Crimped

Droopy loop

Perky loop

Flattened

Tiny loop

Standing at Attention