L E A F - V A S E

sorry I have been absent for a while; I was out of town last week, and honestly, just a slacker the days that I wasn't gone. but I'm back on track now!

this is a good example of how I get inspiration from many places. this one: this I got from a rug. (ha. bet you thought I was going to say "nature" or something cool like that. nope. a RUG.) I saw the design on a rug online, grabbed a jpg of it, changed the color combo, and drew my own leaves, and and lo and behold, we now have a vase with leaves on it. here are a bunch of photos so you can get the full picture of the design.

3 inches in diameter x about 6 inches tall.
I hand-painted the leaves in orange and chocolate brown underglaze. then covered the whole thing with a transparent gloss glaze.
thrown on the wheel, signed and dated, march 2007.
(it's like its anniversary!)
$25

C R A C K L E S

of the tiniest kind

moving on to another fancypants pottery trick, here's a bowl with a crackle finish. the way I did this was to throw a pot with thick-ish walls, then paint it with a darker colored slip. I did this one with a fairly thin coating, so you can see the darker spots are where the slip was thicker; the lighter spots were the thin application. you can see my brush strokes.

after that, I painted on a clear, MAGIC sticky substance and let it sit for 30+ minutes so it hardened, kind of like a shell. after that, I spun the bowl again, carefully NOT touching the outside, and pushed the walls out, so they bowed outward and the shell cracked.

every variable in this scenario makes for different cracking patterns, thicknesses, color difference, etc. so it's fun to see what happens in the end. always a surprise!

the bowl is 6 inches in diameter and about 3.75 inches in height.
since I carved grooves at the bottom, I applied a rusty looking stain called iron oxide that gave the bottom the black sketchy look. then I coated the whole bowl in transparent glaze.
hand-thrown, signed and dated december 2007.

S O L D (03.09.09)

T H A N K - Y O U

I have to share this photo my friend (and best customer), michael, sent me. it's the cabinet in his dining room which is filled with my pottery! he's mixed in a few pieces he's gotten elsewhere and I think it only makes my stuff look that much better. so a big thank you goes out to michael for being so supportive and for sharing!

this is just so cool. only 7 of the pieces shown weren't made by me. see if you can figure out which!

N O T - Q U I T E - H O U N D S T O O T H

#3 in the black wax geometric series

you'll notice a difference in photography here... this was photographed by my neighbor, jen downer, who is a very talented photographer (you can see her wonderful portrait work here: http://www.shesawthings.com/index2.php — AFTER you look at MY stuff, of course!)

anyway, this vase currently sits on our dresser acting as a catch-all for the loose junk that seems to accumulate there. it hardly seems fair for such a lovely piece. but then again, it does make the junk look much less ugly.

the vase is 4.75 inches at its widest and about 4 inches at the base x 4 inches tall.
black wax and "eggshell wash" glaze.
hand-thrown, signed and dated april 2007 (strangely. I didn'te remember that I actually made this one before the other two.)
also $25 (though I am tempted to mark it even higher; this took FOREVER...)

Z E B R A - A N D - P I S T A C H I O

#2 in the black wax geometric series

if you have a lazy susan, you could put this on it. and you could spin it. it's kind of trippy to watch. I suppose this would also work if you have someone named susan who is not lazy, and is willing to hold this in her hand and spin around for you.

the vase is 3.75 inches in diameter x just under 4.25 inches tall.
black wax and matte white glaze ("eggshell wash"), to be exact. inside, I used "pistachio" glaze.
hand-thrown, signed and dated, september 2007
also $25 (because it took a long time...)

S O L D (08.2009)