purple tiger marble

This marble dates back a month or two. This is its third emergence from the kiln. The first time I made it, it was a translucent abstract thing made up of purple, clear, and blue. It was pretty, but stubbornly oblate. Just couldn't get it round. I put it back in the flame after a few weeks, cracked it through and through, healed the cracks, added some more glass, and put goldstone stripes on it. It still didn't want to be quite round, and the stripes were crude. I still didn't like it much. So I tossed it back in the kiln early in the new year (2001) cooked it again (w/o cracking this time), and raked the stripes into a more interesting design. Then I laboriously encased it in clear and this time it rounded up better.

Its main virtues are a pretty good surface and a very rich, deep purple hue. The crude, crayon-like stripes have been improved by raking into something a little more sophisticated, but the raking is not very symmetrical and the whole marble has a rather informal look. Considering its history, I think it's doing pretty well; and this is its last incarnation.

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