The Tank of Doom

Kristina and I were poor, without resources, and unskilled in ceramic production. We broke Saucys every time we turned around. Literally. Either they broke during demolding, cleaning, painting or stilting. Our clay slip was inferior, our methods crude, and our hands were not trained.

We would sit for hours and hours in the front bedroom, cleaning greenware. Sometimes we would get a Saucy all the way clean, holding our breath, and when we went to lay her down she would rock back and forth and break a leg. It's enough to make you cry. (That's when we learned to eat a lot of chocolate.)

So I started keeping the horse's heads before throwing the bodies back into the slip bucket. The poor little heads would sit around until they reached epic proportions, heads lying everywhere, and they would be fired in the bottom of the kiln and thrown into the tank. The tank is a octagon fish tank, with a cracked bottom, that I picked up for a couple of bucks from an aquarium store. Or was it a garage sale? So long ago! Thus the Tank of Doom was born.

Through the years, the Tank of Doom has grown. Now my losses are less than perhaps ten percent and on some minis even lower. If a horse doesn't get plugged, or breaks during cleaning, or is too flawed to bother with... the head comes off, gets fired and in it goes. There are all sorts of interesting things in that tank. Failed claybodies. Experiments that didn't work. A few rare heads, like Dare. It is like looking through the strata of an archaeological dig. Sometimes a collector comes over and they get to rummage through the tank for prizes. Kinda like a kid at the dentist. (Did your dentist have a toy box? Mine did, but he was still just a mean and bitter man with an axe to grind.) Liz Holm has pulled treasures out of the Tank of Doom, applied mineral oils and given them away for photo shows! What a bizarre creature a collector is when you think about it. We like that stuff.

We also use the Tank during Open House here at the factory, so that people who can guess "How many pieces?" win a prize. That game was, well, twisted. Visitors stared in fascination at the half seen ware. (Is that a Voltage??!! WHAT is THAT??!!)

In the beginning, the Tank of Doom allowed us to gauge how many horses we would break and ruin during a production run, so that we knew what the final profit margin was. Very pragmatic, and rather sad really. Then, it was a place to throw the useless bisque in, things that may someday remind us of an idea we had, or something we want to try again. Now, it is like a carnival side show... "See The Thing in the Jar". It is a tradition that started in the early days, and now I would never go without... the Tank of Doom.