In Take Flight, you can see a version of my imaginary friend grow wings and begin to fly. She likes to pop up in my works in different forms as a sort of self-portrait. 

Here I was playing with a new idea of this open-work coil structure that was both a challenge and a delight to build. The base was a labor of love that took me quite a bit of trial and error. The original base did not survive the bisque firing, so I switched to a higher grog clay to hopefully better handle the size of the piece - and it worked! 

The base is loosely representative of the sand and water of the beach, further reinforced with sand added after the final firing.  The open-work coils in the middle section emerge as sort of a cloud-like structure, which have a mother-of-pearl luster finish. My alter ego flying atop the clouds in triumph has wings similar to antlers.

This work was created and fired in three separate pieces and joined with epoxy after the final firing. A combination of underglazes, gloss glazes, and mother-of-pearl overglaze were used.