A state of vagueness.

I was going to write all about my first firing. You can see from the pictures how they turned out. However, I am stuck on a thought about control. As you can see from the pictures the end result is quite different from the beginning product. Obviously. It's how the middle and the last piece relate that run through my head yelling "aha!". It is playing "bumper thoughts" with an issue I have at work. It's about control. Correction, it's about vagueness.

The glazes for pottery are interesting. I take my piece that I've formed. It's been bisked fired and is ready to get dressed. Seems like an important task. hmm...I bet that metalic green would look really cool... I open the metalic green glaze container to see this grey muck. I check the mustard yellow...its rusty muck. Okay, I see. suprise surprise. well, go with it. they have samples fired so I can guess roughly what it might look like... I can wait until next week to see the finished product. I think.

I move on to the raku pieces that we get to fire tonight. The first opportunity to fire as a class in the raku way. I grab the little bowls. My color choices are less...mostly blues. turquoise blue. blue nebula. The actual glazes are not blue but I am cool with this. I get it.

The firing goes on as promised. I am please with how they turned out but they are NOT blue. Why are they not BLUE?

This is what I ponder as I look at them. not blue. And maybe this is because I am at work but I am thinking about several friendly conversations I have had with my supervisor about being okay with vagueness. I generally say that I am okay working independantly and doing my own thing as long as I know the rules and boundries. This job comes with so many different levels of vagueness. I don't fee like going into all of them; just trust me that they are there. I am contantly talking to about how if I could just come up with a guideline. If I could just know "how many" people should I call a day. Then she tells me that it is part of the APO's for the next level up from me to be okay with vagueness.

All I want to know, is that somehow the blue glaze that looks like yellow muck will turn blue.

I am still thinking about this.

On a different note...The intructor came up to me as I was leaving and said that no matter what might happen for the rest of the class, what i made right there, is enough to have made the class a success. That is Raku. I have Barrett as a witness.