Beautiful sculptures, just gorgeous. Did you carve the figures in wood or clay before you fired them. I took a couple sculpture classes so long ago I don't even remember how we did it. One way we did it was to carve something in wood or clay, then cover it with plaster of paris, then cut out the carving, used the plaster, and plasted it back together and fired it.
I coil built the wedding piece with clay, just rolled the clay into coils then scored the clay and started working up. After I had the basic shape I started using the subtractive method and started carving in all the detail was a wedding present for my brother and his wife. The body mass was proportioned to them. My brother is a really big guy and his wife is teee-tiny! HEHE! I was think of how marriage is a unity of two people and how the wedding ring represents this unity. So I decided to demonstrate this by a very intament pose of two people standing face to face arms together up and combining into one ring.
The White Italian alabaster piece I used the subtractive method with a air hammer, grinder, hand chisels, and lots of sand paper.
The shelter of life piece was idea I had of how a mother protects her child throughout life. Notice the fetal position and the egg shell around the figure. This was actually my first stone sculpture. My instructor required me to carve the entire piece by hand no power tools. This way I could actually be in touch with the material, understanding its properties and learning to work with its characteristics to benefit the end result.
This was a very important lesson, I suggest it for anyone that uses there hands to create anything.