Some time after 1987 (I seem to have no dated slides for about ten years) I had an idea.  (When I look back on my work, I can now see fairly regular punctuations that set off the end of one series of explorations from the beginning of another.  The changes are not total by any means.  They have usually come about by changing one thing and keeping everything else the same.)  At any rate, the “idea” that popped into my head sometime in the late Eighties was that instead of the loaf shape determining the general shape of the pot, I would let the shape be determined – or at least suggested – by the pattern of the wire cut. At this time I had gone more and more to the stretched spring wires, and instead of pulling them straight through the loaf, I was zigging and looping the spring, creating patterns that should have been “perfect” for the shape of the loaf (but often weren’t – I couldn’t really tell until I had pulled the slabs apart).  I began to start with the spring wire- cut pattern in a largish square loaf.  Once I saw the pattern, I cut the outside to work with the pattern.  The pattern was the starting point.  The outside shape of the pot got figured out later.  This changed everything once again!

Looking back, the “z pots” may turn out to be my most radical pots – most un-pot-like.  In some cases it seemed almost arbitrary to have an opening at one point and foot at one point.  They were more like pillows made of a very sculptural fabric.

Two-slab vases from the early Nineties  (Z Pots)

10″ to 12″ in height