Green Sea Turtle Surprise Box

Green Sea Turtles travel through oceans all around the world, from above the Scottish Hebrides to south of Tierra del Fuego, the Cape of Good Hope, Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand. Each year females return to lay their eggs at the beach location where they were born, young Turtles returning for the first time after spending about six years at sea. Their ancestors evolved substantially into their current form about 220 million years ago. Their numbers are declining and their future is threatened by human-caused environmental degradation.

I started making this Green Sea Turtle Surprise Box by throwing a closed-form spherical shape on the potter’s wheel with the flattened base up. When it was dried to leather-hard, I turned it over, anchored it to the wheel with clay ropes, and trimmed off to its rounded shape the excess clay that was originally on the potter’s wheel surface. I had to guess how much to trim off to leave the box an even thickness because I couldn’t see the inside. The experience of making many many closed-form spherical boxes in the past guided me. I then cut the box open into zigzag teeth between curved lines with an x-acto knife, and smoothed the edges with a sponge. I sculpted a female Green Sea Turtle, using a National Geographic Sea Turtles article and other pictures for guidance, and hollowed out the Mother Turtle sculpture to guard against the solid clay exploding in the biscuit firing from water trapped inside the solid Turtle body turning to steam. I drilled a small hole under the tail to let out heated air inside the hollow Turtle body during the biscuit firing, which could also explode the Mother Turtle sculpture. I sculpted round Green Sea Turtle eggs, egg shards, cracking eggs, and three Baby Green Sea Turtles in different stages of emerging from their cracking-open eggs. Neither the top Mother Turtle or the inside Baby Turtles and eggs were attached to the box lid or inside the box for the biscuit firing.

After biscuit-firing, I glazed the inside of the box in our matt tan glaze to suggest the color of the sandy beaches where the female Green Sea Turtles return to lay their eggs, and the outside of the box with our matt blue glaze to suggest the ocean waters where these Sea Turtles spend the vast majority of their lives. I brushed our black glaze into all the recessed carved lines of the Mother Green Sea Turtle sculpture, then sponged off the excess to define the outlines of the scale-like features and the growth line edges between the thirteen scutes—the number of plates on all turtle shell backs, land and sea. I glazed the Mother Green Sea Turtle with our light and dark brown and light and dark green glazes, including the Turtle’s belly. I painted our black glaze into all the carved features of the Baby Turtles and the cracking eggs, and sponged them off, then added the brown and green glazes. After that I painted our opaque glossy white glaze all over the eggs, emerging baby Turtle shells and shards, and arranged them carefully inside the bottom half of the box. During the cone 5 oxidation firing, the glazes on the Mother Turtle’s belly, the box lid surface, the eggs, shards, and Baby Turtles inside, all melted and fused together permanently. This Green Sea Turtle Surprise Box sculpture is like a small two-frame movie, with the closed box showing the mother Green Sea turtle on the ocean-water-colored lid, and when the viewer lifts up the box lid, the interior reveals the surprise: hatching Baby Green Sea Turtles, implying the many millions-years old Circle Of Life now threatened by human-caused environmental degradation.

photos by Jon Barber

5.5” diameter by 6” tall

This Green Sea Turtles Surprise Box is for sale, $1,000.00

contact me at inquire@raybub.com for arrangements.