Function Follows Form

     I have made several square cups, bowls, and vase forms after the wood fired masu, the subtle square piece that emerged from last month's wood firings, but this bottle form is especially interesting to me right now. It feels like a unified form in surface, shape, volume, and finished details such as lip/rim and foot. I'm making them in various sizes. The one pictured is about six inches tall. It's striking to me that I have had to approach the vessel via sculpture. Working solid allowed me to detach my mind from utility and tradition. I now address clay from the outside, rather than creating a hollow space and trying to "decorate" it afterward, and function is allowed to follow form.