The next movie on our list finally took us into COLOR… with Katie’s set all about AN AMERICAN IN PARIS. A wonderful dance movie musical starring Gene Kelly & Leslie Caron. Her tureen depicts a classic Parisian row house sitting on a cobblestone street with a sewer cover under the label. The tureen was all hand-drawn with the mishima technique of inlaying underglazes through wax.

The true brilliance of Katie’s set are the spoons… designed in such a way that it looks like you’re smoking a cigarette when the spoon is in your mouth!!! Too funny!!!

“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.”

So this Thursday night was our last LILLSTREET THROWDOWN class!!! And there “may” have been a trophy & ribbons after a lot of great projects… and a bit of quick “Gary Math” to calculate the results!!! More to come… I mean, a LOT more to come…

Some time last week…

Another “monstrously“ fun night at the LILLSTREET THROWDOWN this past week!!! For their final handbuilding challenge… we took inspiration from Gretchen the “Master Monster Maker”… @biggirlco . I’ve loved seeing her monsters online over the years. So I shared her page with my class… discussed being “inspired” by her work… and definitely making our own versions & not copying hers!

So my class had just over two hours to make their own “free-standing” monster… with a minimum of 12” tall. Not an easy assignment… especially with a time restraint. Handbuilding takes time… as they learned… “wet clay” typically doesn’t want to stand up on its own! Everyone had a GREAT time… thanks again to Gretchen @biggirlco for the inspiration! We hope we did you proud!!!

This week in my LILLSTREET THROWDOWN class, we did a decorative platter challenge. Which started with 45 minutes to throw a five-pound platter. Not too tough… until they found out that they had to rotate around to different wheels every ten minutes or so. Picking up wherever the person before them left off. Then after several rounds, they ended back at their original wheel to see what kind of a platter was left for them! Some were very nice… while others may have struggled a bit & ended more with a small salad plate?!

Regardless, the real challenge was to decorate whatever platter was left for them! Embracing the nuances & pivoting as needed in the final minutes. We had some pretty sweet results after a lit of fun rotating & switching!

After all ten THROWDOWN Decathlon events… we ended up with a tie!!!
So we did a quick tie-breaker to figure out our medal winners!!!

Congratulations to our Bronze medalist Nicole… our Silver medalist Sara… and our Gold medalist Helen!!! All three of them survived the Decathlon and made it to our podium!!!

So much fun… a lot to cover in one night’s class!