So I wonder if Jack & Rose liked soup?… especially before ending up on that fateful door?! Here’s Sophie’s take on the classic TITANIC… which unfortunately did not make it into the kiln in time for our final class. It’s kinda brilliant though having the ship as the tureen… sitting on a plate complete with icebergs!!! The soup bowls have illustrations like drawing Jack did in the movie… that Sophie drew with underglaze pencils. The ladle has the “Heart Of The Ocean” necklace on it. And you can’t see it, but the bottom if the ships interior is glazed to look like the ocean water filling it in!!!

“Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”

And we weren’t sure what we were going to get from Carmina either. She chose to make her set out of terra cotta… and did most of her work on it away from others. Very few of us saw her work in progress. So the reveal of FORREST GUMP was amazing! Her tureen is based on a traditional Vietnamese vessel & her glaze colors go along with some of the retro colors from decades featured in the movie.

But the best part… the tray that is A BOX OF CHOCOLATES!!!

Of course there had to be a Meryl Streep classic somewhere on the list… and her we have Ruth’s take on OUT OF AFRICA. Complete with an elephant as the tureen & soup bowls depicting colorful scenes from the savannah. The most amazing part… the tureen ladle that also becomes the elephant’s trunk!!!

Helen took on a modern “western” classic with Kevin Costner… DANCES WITH WOLVES. Helen’s tureen has some great sgraffito carvings around the bands of color. And an amazing wolf on the top of the lid as the knob. The handles on the sides were buffalo… or “tatanka” as they call them in the movie. Her lid was glaze-fused for awhile… but eventually popped off. And unfortunately had one spoon that broke, and the replacement didn’t make it though the glaze kiln in time!t

Abena tackled another favorite movie musical… WEST SIDE STORY. She had some wonderful ideas for her tureen soup set. However, she met up with a lot of technical production issues along the way… ending with not getting her pieces fired on the final glaze kiln soon enough to show off in class. So many of her pieces are covered with a light layer of sprays clear glaze. There are a lot of textures, colors & imagery under the glaze layer. Shame that it doesn’t show up in the photos.

“To be or not to be… that is the question…”
Another black & white addition to our list of movies. Hamlet – a classic Shakespeare winner starring Laurence Olivier. The tureen presentation” started with Taylor giving a full soliloquy to the group… all re-written to be about her soup set & everything that happened while trying to make it. Her set is simple, clean & classic… with great black & white design and famous quotes from The Bard himself.

Special thanks again to Taylor for pulling together all of the movie teasers to show in class!

As the earliest movie chosen as a theme… Jack chose to go with the black & white motif of the movie CASABLANCA. His hand-carved designed were influenced by the shapes & patterns of he Moroccan tiles in the movie. His tureen has the largest of the group… as well as he LIGHTEST!!! It weighs almost nothing! And his ladle was amazing… after designing a great support structure to hold it up to prevent breakage or warping during the kiln firings.

The LILLSTREET THROWDOWN class accepted the challenge… embraced their themes… engaged with their movies… and showed off their final “main make” project this week! Remember, it was a full “Best Picture movie-themed” soup service set with a lidded tureen & plate, ladle, four soup bowls & four soup spoons. As with any ceramic project, we had some great successes, some kiln timing issues & some construction challenges. They all worked so hard to pull off this major achievement. So proud of all of them. What a wonderful group making it a wonderful class!!!

So last Thursday was the final night of our LILLSTREET THROWDOWN. And if you recall, their final projects were all themed off of Academy Award BEST PICTURE winners across the years. Timely, right?! And you know how I love a good theme… so we had a little “movie night” fun in class!!! And one of my students Taylor volunteered to bring all of the movie trailers to watch before revealing each final project. So much fun!!! Especially when Taylor went one step further… with a soliloquy of her own about her set based on “Hamlet.”

“FOR GOOD” was real good!!!

Last night we went to see “WICKED FOR GOOD” on IMAX and loved it. The performances are amazing, the vocals crazy… and so fun to see how everyone & everything came together, transformed, evolved, devolved & pulled it all together “for good.” I must say… loved the stage version, but I’m still loving the movies so much more!