A dozen jugbirds were ready for their glaze firing recently and work made by family members justified getting that done. Guests from Washington State were able to pick up their chosen Puffin jugbird on their way through here, en route to Calgary. I mailed a crested Kingfisher to another Washington State friend, just in time for his wife on Mothers’ Day. I plan to save the others here so that I have a few of my signature birds on hand for the upcoming ‘Solstice Shuffle’ on June 23rd. These are just some of the birds I make.
On January 1st I found a little dish on which I’d planned to do sgraffito. Feeling trapped by Winter and the absence of friends I made a quick drawing of our house and emphasized the fence. ‘Fenced-in’ is how I felt that day. Thank goodness we now have Spring flowers and can be outside!
This little dish was unplanned, which is unusual for me. It needed carving, I felt, and the glazed yellow slip is a nice contrast to the smooth terra sigillata finish below. I had some interesting suggestions as to what it might contain. What do you think you’d put in there?
Here are the pots made by grandsons and d-i-l Jen on a couple of visits. These are their first attempts at using my wheel, and Lucas borrowed a couple of my bisque moulds to make a lunch plate and a vast Pope’s Hat platter. On a subsequent visit they applied underglazes.
The May firing of the Potters’ Guild of BC gas kiln was scheduled for May 6th, rather earlier than I expected, but I decided to take my lonely five bisqued pots into the Mergatroid building in Vancouver for their cone 10/11 reduction firing anyway. As noted in an earlier blog, it gave me a Mount Pleasant and Granville Island day. And the pick-up day had me checking the grad show at Emily Carr U nearby.
I was most anxious to see the results of more carving and sgraffito on stoneware. This pouring bowl was dipped in the guild’s Malcolm Davis shino glaze. With a bright orange inside and lots of variety outside, it’s splendid!
This bowl, with its rich coating of Temmoku glaze is delicious! Mashed potatoes, green vegetables anybody?
I had made a couple of pieces to try out different ways of using sgraffito. Here is another dinner plate on which I had painted bands of earthenware ‘peacock’ slip. Coating it with celadon has softened the drawing somewhat, and the slip is blue. The smaller dish was carved when leather hard, and coated with black underglaze after the bisque firing, then wiped off. It was also glazed in my satiny Leach celadon.
I plan to keep these pieces here for now, available in my studio. Get in touch for prices if you’d like to give one a home. The next photo shows a sweet new green glaze now available for folks using the PGBC kiln. Apparently it comes from Herman Venema’s studio closing. I want to make something that needs to be green! The shino koi and little green lego-based house are by Diane Espiritu.
I’d like to post some photos of the excellent talk by Port Moody ceramic artist-in-residence Max Yang last Wednesday but I have flowers to plant! Watch for that blog soon.
