Seconds shelf: the cup that stood by the door

Eight grams. That is how much more glaze this cup carries than its siblings, and it explains most of what you see.

It sat on the bottom shelf of Kiln log #31, door side, where the front cone only bent to four o'clock. Half a cone cold. On top of that I dipped it twice by accident, so the T-07 coat went on at about six seconds instead of three.

What went wrong:

• Too thick, too cool. The blue ash never fully melted, so it reads matte and dry, like chalk on slate.
• The glaze crawled on the outside, pulling back into islands and leaving three bare patches of barro near the foot.
• No ash streaks at all. The slow cool can't move a glaze that never got runny.

Why I kept it: it is the clearest picture I have of what T-07 does under-fired and over-dipped. Better than any note. The inside is glazed and sound, so it holds water.

It goes on the Seconds shelf next month at 150 pesos, about a third of a good cup. Until then it sits on the windowsill above the wedging table holding my trimming tools, where Feldespato can't knock it down.