SLOOP

Sloop; Dutch- sloep, a sailing boat with a single mast and a fore-and-aft rig

Growing up I was always fascinated by the age of the sail and great wooden sailing ships, large and small and took every opportunity to watch all of the classic swashbuckler movies with Errol Flynn, Tyrone Power and many others. Luckily I grew up on Lake Champlain the site of the great Revolutionary War Battle Of Valcour Island and a lake filled with every type of boat you could imagine including fast and sleek sloops populated the water. Later on I spent a decade in Cleveland and Lake Erie and then again in Guilford, CT on the Long Island Sound a gateway to the Atlantic and lots of boats, many powered solely by sail. The point I am trying to get to is that having indirectly been around boats for a good portion of my life and fascinated by great sea battles building pots based on the posture of these vessels only seemed natural.


Over time I have made a number of teapots that were very influenced on sailing vessels from the battleships of WW1 (the Jutland T-pots) to thrown and altered pieces like this piece that borrowed heavily from sloops I saw as a kid and teen and this piece is fully functional and holds enough for two generous cups of tea or what have you. Thrown as a cylinder without top or bottom, the piece was pushed oval and then cut, darted and reassembled into the current form you see here being careful not to disturb the gallery where the lid would fit. Once firm enough, I humped the lid upside down on the gallery, dried it a bit and cut it to fit adding a pulled handle to appear like a banner flowing in the wind. I decided to put together this short video slideshow to help give a fuller account of the proportions and lines of this teapot and hope it helps.

Still surf rockin' after four decades;