Monday, April 15, 2019

RUSHED

Last fall while I was in the middle of getting pots made for galleries and holiday sales I ended up making, decorating, firing and packing so quickly that I didn't take many if any photos of stuff going out the door. In response to one gallery owner's request that I possibly send them some "new designs" I had made an extra group of about 20 or so terra cotta bowls destined for either tebori carved slip, black and white slip trailed or the combination of both and over coffee the morning of trimming and decorating sketched out several design ideas. Once the pots were trimmed and black slipped the first bowl I decorated was with a carved repeat design with white slip trailed dot accents and the snowberry design was born. It is a rather simple design and the technique to get there is also simple enough but the flow of the decoration works rather well on a round bowl or plate surface. In all, I probably only made two dozen of these pieces but in my rush to make them, I only ended up with a single photo of a greenware piece, none in their finished state. Not sure what else to say other than they all sold and the illustrated pieces come from a recently completed Spring order so I'll keep on making them. I'll end by saying that I wish every design I came up with was popular but I can certainly think or quite a few that never took off, most notably the twister-ware design of 1999!

2 comments:

  1. nice to have them all sell out, wondering do you use terracotta for decorated pieces and high fire clay for the effect of the glazes and textures? How do you keep your clays separated in the studio?

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  2. It is a simple juggling act keeping the clays separated along with differing sets of tools and water buckets for each clay. Mostly the terra cotta is decorated in a group of styles and yes, the high fire is more about glazes and glaze effects. No way to get bored this way. CB

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