During my feedback for my first part of this final project I was advised to be more ambitious in scale so I took this on board and the largest kiln we have at college is 98cm tall. So I spent 50 hours three bags of porcelain and 1258 disks making a 93cm piece. Dan the technician placed it in the kiln as it was very heavy for me to carry. It was fired over the weekend and I came in on the Monday only to find it had fallen over in the kiln and landed in the back right corner causing some damage to the disks at the top and bottom. It has shrunk to 81cm. Naturally I was devastated that it had not worked as it can't stand up by itself. But the silver lining is that I like the curve to it and has lead to other ideas and has made me look at my work in a more architectural sense. I will make it again but fire it to a lower temperature as we think that the reason that it fell was that when porcelain is fired to high temperatures it gets unstable and wobbly. So firing it at lower temperature and having kiln shelves propped around it so if it does fall it will lean against the shelf which will lean against the kiln wall. Hopefully.... watch this space!
