T E - M A T A - V A S E S

te mata means "the cliff" in maori. and we found quite a few of those in new zealand. places I was sure that we would never, ever, ever be allowed to walk up or climb on or be anywhere near the top of in america. places that make you feel small and insignificant and inspired all at the same time.

hand-built stoneware, with celadon glaze over iron oxide to bring out the textures and crags.
signed and dated october, 2012.

large : $75
short (on the left): $50

short (on the right): $50

 

the real te mata peak

E A S Y - W A Y - D O W N

I mentioned in my last post that chris and I did a whole bunch of adventuring in new zealand among which activities was paragliding. we went up the mountain in queenstown to just take an easy day and do some of the little luge ride they have up there (which we did), but then realized that there were people running off the side of the mountain. for some reason, that looked like a much more fun way to get down than the gondola. so, without much careful thought or consideration (i.e. time to chicken out), we did it. and it was AWESOME.

this mobile is an ode to that time and the sheep mentality, which in this case, made life much more fun.

the mobile attaches directly to the wall (thank you, jan, for figuring out how to make that work) and the parachutes are hand-made from porcelain. I glazed the tops of them in zinc-free clear glaze to make them shine a bit. the sheep were each molded from sculpey.

october 2012.

$150 (though I probably should have charged more!)

S O L D (11.01.12)

and OMG what were we thinking?

A D R E N A L I N E - P L A T E S

while in new zealand, chris and I took it upon ourselves to do pretty much every adrenaline junkie activity that we could. and believe me, there is a LOT there. so I made some plates about our adventures.

I think the only things we did that I am missing are mountain biking, paragliding (which I will address in a post soon) and wine tasting by bike (perhaps the most dangerous thing we did).

each design is hand-stenciled onto the plate with underglaze pencil. due to the nature of the pencils i have, I pretty much have to draw them on there, then paint over them using the glaze from pencil and a wet paintbrush. it's a labor-intensive process, but I quite like the result.

handbuilt, september and october 2012. each plate is about 7" in diameter.

surfing : $35

rafting : $35

blackwater rafting (this is rafting on an underground river through a cave : $35
snorkelin : $35
kayaking : $35

sorry, the grayed out ones were S O L D (11.01.12)

F A S C I N A T I N G - V A S E S

though perhaps these should be called "facet-nating" vases?

regardless, I made a bunch of vases with facets cut out of them. while not strictly new zealand themed, I felt like this kind of symbolized us getting our heads out of the boxes they had been in before our trip.

all the vases vary a little, and have the wood grain effect I am so fond of. the tricky part was letting myself just use whatever pieces worked when I built them, and not get hung up on what was wood grain and what wasn't. and then glazing: I made a rule that anything wood grain had to be white. so it was a bit of a puzzle to figureout what would work and what wouldn't.

the last one I made was the big (purple) one, and it got more complicated than the rest... I might try to do something similar again someday with a different glaze; I had hoped the hot orchid glaze I used would turn out differently (it usually does)

there were five in all. three sold (though I had a lot of people ask after the little yellow one). so the two left are the purple one and the pink one.

handbuilt, august through october 2012. dimensions of the ones I still have available upon request.
hot orchid (also known as purple) : $110

yellow: $35

celadon: $45

blizzard blue: $85

tutu pink : $75