As regular readers will know by now, the last term’s work at college has been based on an artist of our choosing – mine is the Polish fantasy/surrealist Jacek Yerka. For our ceramics module this term we had to design and make a functional teapot based on our artist’s work.

This first image shows my three designs that reached maquette stage: I dubbed them ‘Time Flies’, ‘Town in a Teacup’ and ‘Brontosaurus Civitas’ – click on the links to see the original images on which they are based.

As you can see, it was worth doing the test run, as the Brontosaurus exploded on firing as I’d not left a big enough hole leading to the pot void… All would make functional tea pots, with the ring pot being the most striking, but trickiest to make. I decided to go for the quickest to make, and my original idea, as time was limited to get the pot finished, fired and glazed before exhibition night. Here’s the final pot – a little on the large size to be practical, but fully functional. The town is a close fitting lid, and decorated with various oxides. The main pot is internally glazed and decorated with slips and part glazed to give the impression of the monster being in water with cliffs leading up to the town. I think I prefer working small, as I’m far happier with the town than the pot!