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.”

Okay… one last piece… after all it is still NATIONAL PI… err, PIE DAY for another half hour!!!
And food always tastes better on handmade pottery.

Just a fun night at the Skid Row Flower Shop… with Seymour, Audrey & that darn Audrey 2. Someone (me) didn’t check out our tickets beforehand… so a little surprised & excited to be front row center! Practically ON the stage at the Marriott Lincolnshire Theater in the round! Made it a little tougher for me to sing-along when the real actors were just inches away… singing on key!!!

Well, it’s NATIONAL PIe DAY… originally for the math-nerds what with the 3.141592 and all?! I’m awfully glad it has been expanded to PIE… with an E!!! I’m a tried & true Cherry pie fan!!! But when a little Triple Berry shows up in the mix… how is one to choose??? And why should I?… after all, today is a National Holiday!!!

A chilly morning… windy & cold along the lakefront. Beautiful colors as the waves came crashing in. Hovering right around freezing… a crisp way to start the day! And to think we were in the 70’s just a few days ago?!

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…