After my last attempt on the pottery wheel, I decided to hand build not one, but two plates! I made the small fork as well. One plate has a foot, one does not. I took the advice of my teacher and decided it'd be best to make two plates just in case one cracked in the kiln. Both plates have been fired at this point. I used under glazes and scraped away some of the color for the sgraffito effect. My second plate has lots of color and a more painterly look, representing imperfection. The other has floral designs inspired by fine china, representing perfection. Neither is actually perfect, but both still look very cute. The fine china idea came from a suggestion my classmates made, so I added it into my design.
It was super hard to stop myself from trying to perfect every part of the plates. I quite literally had to have my friend look over my shoulder and tell me to relax while I made them because I'd get stuck trying to perfect them over and over. The plates warp and have unpredictable patterns once fired either way, but this all adds to this idea that perfection is impossible and quite frankly, unnecessary. Another way I'm showing this is with the colorful stitches in the bunny.
I looped embroidery thread through the needle twice to make sure the stitches I made are visible. Usually, someone hand sewing a plush would avoid visible stitches and see them as imperfections, so I'm using that to my advantage. Once I get the other arm on my little dude, I'll start adding detail with embroidery and possibly fabric dye. Then I'll literally add the whip cream and cherry to top it off.
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