Spring and Summer of 2016, Revisiting bowls

Batter bowl with rolled rim and strap handle

Strap handle with hot pad stamp decoration

I have been doing bowls for several years now, and really enjoy doing them. However, I have used many of these bowls over the years and found some things about them lacking. I really like batter bowls, and yet never believed my handles to be integrated into the form well enough. They performed well, mixed eggs or batter nicely, and were easy to pour from and clean. The handles even worked well, but just did not seem to fit, more added on. 

Top view showing hot pad stamped decoration on handle

Lately on bowls I have been using a flared rim about 1" to 1 1/2" wide, This rim allows a baking bowl to be lifted out of the oven without having to have a handle. One day I decided to roll the rim down making an indent opposite the spout. Adding a strap handle from there was easy, and I believe the result is quite pleasing as you can see from the photos.

Small bowl with stamped hot pad decoration

Decoration was done by pressing a silicone hot pad against the unshaped bowl cylinder, then shaping without outside support. This also gave the bowl a bit of a looser feel than some of my other work.

Serving Bowl

 I like my bowls with a healthy foot providing stability visibility. The problem with that over the years has been how they work in a dishwasher. If the bowl is trimmed properly, and has a deep foot ring, it is problematic when unloading the dishwasher. You usually get everything wet when unloading if you lift the bowls out before all the rest. The deep foot holds water! This year I started using a brass piece of pipe to cut large arcs in the foot rings of other pots like the funiery urn. It just came natural after liking the look on those to try it on the bowls. Worked well.

Mixing Bowl with stamped hot pad decoration

 For those of you that are interested in throwing bowls, I throw the bowls here with 4, 6, and 8 poinds of clay. Both the batter bowl and small bowl are with 4 poinds. The Mixing bowl is using the 8 lb.  amount, and is quite useful for mixing, and with the rim even for cooking in the oven. The flared rim allows ingredients to be dumped into the bowl catching any oversights. When lifting a bowl out of the oven when hot, the rim allows secure grip without worrying bout sliding out of grip.

Mixing Bowl from above