Jesse as Athena

Grecian plate

💀🏺🏛️🛡️🤺

2024-09-23

Jesse is the wonderful kiln tech at Terraform Studio. When I learned that Athena is the god of pottery and protects potters from the five evil "Daemones Ceramici" that plague us, I immediately thought of her.

Here's a fun poem about Athena and these Daemons:

The Potter's Loud Lament

From Homers Epigram's fragment 14:

"Potters, if you give me a reward, I will sing for you. Come, then, Athena [goddess of pottery], with hand upraised over the kiln.
Let the pots and all the dishes turn out well and be well fired: let them fetch good prices and be sold in plenty in the market.
Grant that the potters may get great gain and grant me so to sing to them.
But if you turn shameless and make false promises, then I call together the destroyers of kilns,
Suntribos the Shatter and
Smaragon the Smasher and
Asbetos the Charrer and
Sabaktes the Crasher and
Omodamos the Crudebaker
who can work this craft much mischief.
Come all of you and sack the kiln-yard and the buildings: let the whole kiln be shaken up to the potter's loud lament.
As a horse's jaw grinds, so let the kiln grind to powder all the pots inside."

The plate was cut from a slab of Keane ironstone and then organically shaped and smoothed. The art was painted with Chrysanthos black and Amaco velvet terracotta underglazes. Northcote Pottery Supplies clear satin glaze fired cone 10 oxidation to finish.