In my never ending questing, I decided to test a whole slew of new (to me) clay bodies this last two months. I insanely chose 8 clay bodies including two that were red in color, five that were porcelain clays and one new stoneware. It has been quite a process and definitely took more time than I thought away from production work which has had its benefits and drawbacks.
The good is I’ve been testing new colors, new glazes, new shapes, and having lots of fun in the studio. The bad is the obvious guilt over feeling like I should just be producing and producing. This includes my horrible habit of thinking everything I make has to be saleable and then having the stress of feeling like I don’t have enough work for such and such gallery or show. But enough of the suffering for your art! Onto the results!
The results of my experiments were that WOW the color of porcelain is vastly different. Some of it was almost yellow or brown in my eyes that seek the perfection of whiteness as the canvas for my minimalist color usage and drawings. And then there was the disappointment that my favorite clay body in color was also my most hated clay body in terms of workability, cracking and warping. (If you are a ceramics artist, I bet you can guess exactly which clay I speak as it is notorious in its reputation!) The clay body that was super fun and exciting to work with is not doing it for me color wise.
Back to the drawing board? Guess what? I bought a new bag of porcelain clay 
yesterday.