I had the idea that you could take a mould from a basket ball and use it to make indoor ceramic wall planters.

It is simple to cast the ball, make a rough bowl with Mod rock. Making sure it is larger than the basket ball. Then pour plaster into the bowl and push your basketball in. I think I gave the basketball a light coating of olive oil to act as a bit of a release. I was doing this in my kitchen. I got my plaster of Paris from a local decorators merchant. It really takes a very good impression of the ball. I tried both a Spalding and a Wilson ball. The letters come out better on the Wilson as its slightly deeper embossed. When it has all set you can just let the air out of the ball.

I rolled a large slab and pushed it into the mould. You can see a bit of a crease here where the slab folded in on itself. I tend now to trim the slab along one of the seams in the basket ball to disguise the joins. Its got a hole in the back so you can hang it on the wall. I glaze them in a satin white quite thinly so the texture and type get picked up with a bit of white. But the rest hopefully has a leather brown tone. Like a worn out ball.

I have always liked the idea of readymades by Marcel Duchamp, so it seems only fair that you can appropriate one form and use it for something else. Like Claes Oldenburg, there is fun to be had by changing the objects properties. So the soft sculptures of solid things. For my basket balls they go from bouncy to fixed and rigid. Finally one of the few pieces by Jeff Koons that I actually like are the Total Equilibrium Tank basketballs. The engineering of them is very elegant.