mini churn making

An interesting project has come my way.  I have been working with a local historical group to reproduce small versions of a pottery item.  The original was made by a potter who once worked on the property known as "The Castle" in Marietta, Ohio.

I will more or less quote the information from The Castle Facebook page:  The items I reproduced were butter churns.  One, approximately 11 inches high, is about a half size version of a churn made by Nathaniel Clark at The Castle location in the early 19th century. The original churn was stamped by Clark with his name and the Marietta location. The downsized copy re-creates the shape and incised decorative banding of the original, and is marked on the base as a one-of-a-kind reproduction authorized by The Castle Museum.  This one was available for purchase by raffle at a special garden party fundraiser at The Castle this week.

Then there are the really down-sized versions:  The mini churns which are sold in The Castle's gift shop.  So far, I have completed 56 of these small churns which are only 5&1/2 inches tall- about 5 inches after firing.

The mini butter churns are a very narrow- approximately 2&1/4 inches wide at top and bottom.  For part of the making process I am using the old sponge on a stick method (above) in order to get to where my fingers cannot!

The 11 inch churn surrounded by some of the mini churns.  

It took some experimenting to find the best possible way to reproduce the look of the clay and, since I am using an electric kiln, the lightly salted wood fired surface on the original.

All is not work!  Ivin and I had a nice visit with some friends at the beach last week.