Shattered Pieces

Today was a really good day but also a really bad day. Let's start with the good... I waxed and polished my horse sculpture, so now it's super smooth and shiny.

I also finished Tembo, my elephant. In the collage, the top left is the view from the front and the bottom right is the view from the back. I'm really happy with how it turned out! It's hard to see all the three dimensionality in the pictures, but there are many different levels.

Now, we get to the bad part of the day. I took a break from sculpture and went to the ceramics studio to quickly burnish my curved plate (done by rubbing the back of a spoon on the clay). 

Then, I went outside to see if my rhino had been fired. I didn't see it outside but I saw the kiln door was slightly open. I took a peek in... And wanted to cry because this is what I saw.

My rhino, that I had spent probably 30+ hours working on, had cracked in multiple places. It's hard to see in the picture but both cheeks cracked, and the ear completely came off. I don't know if more damage was done because it is cooling off in the kiln, so I guess I have to be patient and wait but it's not looking good for Msanii. Worse case scenario, I'm leaving him here and making another one when I'm back in LA so I don't have to ship it home. I came home and drowned my sorrows with a homemade hamburger... It helped a little. 

Ciao for now!