Lidded boxes

 

The assignment: Make three boxes with slab building technique that are not alike but that will make somehow a set. Also it's important to think for what they will be used for.

I made these from local low-fire red clay that I added grog to make it more strong for handbuilding and painted them with engobes. I've had in my mind long time to make "architypes" of buildings that I saw in Israel, so this was the perfect spot to try it out. Using slabs ment for me to be very patient to wait for the exact right time for each different shape and structure to build. This was a  good exercise to understand that very simple shapes can actually be very demanding. Also I wanted to apply the architectural details to the pieces the way that they would become functional. It took alot of mental dicipline (that dont come naturally for me) to keep my self focused on the task but it was worth all the suffering in the end -no cracks or disturbing bending, lids sitting perfectly and the wared out decoration was as I wanted it. I chose to not glaze the pieces to have beautiful matte surfaces, exept one have clear glaze on the inside for practical reasons.

Arabic-style garlic holder with window holes to keed the box well aired

Concreate building with legs to keep onions. There is also one airhole on the bottom, that doesn't show in the pics. The lid dont have a knob but "walls" that you can get a grip from. It also could be a serving dish on it's own.

The fancy old house of Tel Aviv is a cookie jar with glazed insides for keeping the box easier to keep clean.