INQUISITIO DE PRAETERITO

Having a blog and a storefront up you never know who is going to email and what it may be about. In many instances I get questions about how did I do this or that, some are people from the past just catching up and saying hi and some ordering new work and like so much of the internet there are also some that you don't necessarily want to deal with. That being said, I was recently contacted by someone who used to haunt the Cleveland gallery scene back in the 90s who has since moved out West and they asked me if I was still making a particular kind of work. At first I was a bit bewildered by the description and after looking through some old images I found exactly what they were talking about, see the illustration. 

I remember making these teapots in a variety of styles but this pair really eludes the time and reason they were made though I "suspect" they were made for a show quite possibly at the GBF Gallery in Cleveland for a teapot or tea themed show. At the time I was playing around with this specific metallic glaze and paper/tape resist and both of these pieces had gemstones, an uncut and tumbled amethyst and a citrine attached as knobs using sterling wire. To get to the point, they wanted to know if I could make another pair for their daughter-in-law using the corresponding gemstones to the husband/wife's birthstone (!). I explained that I wasn't even sure what the glaze was though I would search around through my highly organized notes (sarcasm alert) and see what I could figure out. I really wouldn't be opposed to making another set though admittedly they would be a bit different than those illustrated.

  

If it weren't for my presence on the web, I would most likely never have heard from these particular customers who made my stay in Cleveland quite a wonderful experience so the search begins. Now all I have to do is look through a dozen or more banker boxes and thousands of tiny scrapes of paper without dates in most case and disassociated from each other. I think my wife is right, after all these years of making pottery maybe it is time to get a tad more organized.