Mid-Summer Up-date and New Vases

Well it has certainly been quite a while since I have posted anything on the blog but there has been some recent newsworthy items along with a few batches of new work that is slowly creeping towards being on the website for an up-date again.  We are part way through summer and I just pulled a collection of new vase forms in the new speckled clay, perfect for wildflowers or flowers from the garden.  I keep envisioning them lining a large out-door table, filled with fresh pickings from summer gardens. I hope to have them available online and in shops in the next couple of weeks, but in the meantime I took a few home to enjoy and photograph. The speckled clay has been getting a lot of attention these days (check out the August issue of Canadian House & Home Magazine), but of course I'm still making heaps of my more classic dahlhaus work: the poppies, the stripes, the triangles and the herringbone designs, which were all standards in my spring shop orders. 

Speaking of shops- have you checked out the up-dated stocklists page on my website?  There are a few new ones to point out- the Museum of Craft in Design in SF was particularly exciting to make work for.  Also Poppytalk now has a storefront on Broadway just off Main st in Vancouver- it's a beautiful little shop and they are well stocked with the speckled work! I just finished a huge custom colour tea canister set for a new lemonade and tea shop called Sunny Side. Along with another painting commission this spring, things have felt quite busy in the studio.  I'm ready for a couple of weeks of holidays mid- August, but there is a bit more work to get through before then.

In other news, I wanted to announce that I'm a finalist for the Western Living Designer of the Year Award in the Industrial Design Category! I'm in great company so I wish everyone the best of luck! Along with that news, I should also take a moment to say that I will be at the Interior Design Show late September as part of the Poppytalk Curated Market.   I'll be back to say more about that but it should be an exciting fall with that kicking off more shows to come.

The boys are all doing great.  Summer is a busy time for my husband, Dean, who over-sees 2  skateboard camps at the beginning/middle of August.  My boys have been taking part of some summer day camps with afternoons spent at the local out-door pool.  We are looking forward to getting away as a family to visit friends, hang out at the beach and press the re-fresh button.  I hope you are able to do that as well! 

Until next time- but in the meantime, you can always follow on Instagram;)!

Spring in the Studio!

It's that time of year again where a few of us at the Mergatroid building get together and plan to open our studio doors for a sale!  It's the once a year, these prices can't be beat kind of sale, where I pull all my work out of the cupboard, some of it with slight glazing issues, or maybe a style or colour that I won't be making again, but otherwise looking for a good home to be used in!  I have a bit of new work that I will have available, but for the most part, it's your chance to find something at a deal that you can happily take home and enjoy, instead of having it take up space in my studio!

Here are all the details!

Saturday, May 4, 2013
11:00 am until 6:00 pm

965 & 975 Vernon Drive
Vancouver, BC
(MAP)

This one day event will feature the work of...

m.a. tateishi (suite 280) --- http://www.matart.ca/
bronsino (suite 225) --- http://www.bronsino.com/
kelly austin design (suite 225) --- http://www.kellyaustindesign.com/
su foster jewellery (suite 225) --- http://www.sufoster.com/
mimosa (suite 225) --- http://www.ilovemimosa.com/
dahlhaus (suite 8) --- http://www.dahlhausart.com/
heyday design (suite 210) --- http://www.heydaydesign.ca/

Check out our event on Facebook!

Eastside Culture Crawl 2012 re-cap

A quick little photo re-cap for you of the Eastside Culture Crawl, which I've spent the week recovering from.  It's always great to clean up the studio and get everything looking spiffy for people to see my work. I try to hide some of the distracting 'tools of the trade' for the day because it's a little less cluttered to view the work without buckets of glaze and slip hanging around.  I guess one of these days I'll have a studio open house where I'll actually do a demo and have my wheel or casting table exposed, but for the Crawl, there's so many people in and out of the studio that it's too hard to have it all going on in the same space. 
This year the Crawl felt quieter but perhaps the soggy weather kept everyone home and under covers.  All the same it was so lovely to say hello to many familiar faces and friends.  Truly grateful for this event, all the press I received this year, and the many compliments and encouraging words!

Renegade SF

 Please come by and visit if you are in the neighborhood- we are booth #100!  My lovely studio neighbor  (and booth sharer) and I have arrived and are taking in all the great sights this city has to offer!  I'll be back with photos soon, in the meantime, hope you are having a lovely week!

The Cup give-a-way goes to...

Thanks to everyone who posted on my cup give-a-way!  I added everyone up and there were a couple of repeat comments so it ended up being 53 comments to work from, which means the winner is Anne Magee! So congratulations Anne, please email me at heather@dahlhausart.com to let me know which design you would prefer so I can glaze a cup for you over the next couple of days and have it ready to ship out to you by the end of the week! 
Thank you all again for coming by my blog- it's been really good to read some of the feed-back with recent posts I've put out there!  I appreciate the dialogues, suggestions and reminders of what this blog is about for me and value all of you for stopping by! 
Now I'm off to pick up the boys from a play-date, make them supper, work on homework with them and hopefully put my feet up after a long day at the studio! 
Cheers,
Heather

Line up of new work

I took the opportunity of a pleasant Sunday on the Family farm to take a few shots of my recent work.  I have a professional photo-shoot booked next week but it will be a little bit before the work makes it on my website.  So here's a little idea of what's to come.

The Disa & Heather Collection coming soon...

The collaboration that I worked on this spring with my friend Disa is finally starting to come out of the kiln.  Introducing the first completed glimpses of our handmade vase collection in Chevron and Lotus.  The last shot is our vases in process, while we were making them. I'll keep you posted on the shop reveal very soon...

studio shop

It's been in the works for a couple of weeks now, a group of designers and makers from our studio building wanting to get together to have an open studio event before summer gets started!  I'll be posting more details here this month, along with some little insights and interviews with some of these great artists and designers (more than just pictured above).  If you are in Vancouver June 26th and 27th, you'll be sure to want to come by the Mergatroid Building to kick start your summer off! 

My copy of House & Home finally arrived...

just as it is due to be on news stands across Canada! 
Just some little tidbits for those that are interested:
I am making my way through orders and inquiries as they come in- thanks for your patience in this regard.  There is a wait-list for the tile frames (mini ceramic paintings) so please email me if you would like to be notified as I have more in stock.  I am making more of the Dutch Folk Art Vases (as I got too attached to the ones I made in my mini-series) and they should be ready over the next 3 weeks.  Also, I am the sole maker of my ceramics and it takes me time to make the work so thanks in advanced for being patient if your order takes a week for me to ship out.

Just the beginning...

I was pretty excited when these came out of the kiln.  Black, white and grey.  Lines that give definition and allow for pattern emerge.  Simple, modern, smooth and silky feeling.  Plus lots of room for me to expand the series. I've been working towards this series for a few months with no good results until now!  I have more work to photograph tomorrow and will let you know when it's all up in the shop!

More big news: we got a new kiln at the studio!  I'm so very excited about it- it was exactly the kiln I was hoping for- a large Skutt computer kiln in really good shape even though it is used.  I can't say enough great things about our landlord who fronted the money to buy the kiln for all of us!  It has been frustrating to fit my limited studio schedule into everyone else's kiln schedule along with only having 1 working kiln for 6 of us.

Poppytalk Mixtape Market Opens Today!

Hi everyone, hope your weekend went well! The Mixed Tape Poppytalk Market opens today and it's full of some great new artists and work! I especially love the do-it-yourself options this time around. I'm getting inspired to buy a cross-stitching pattern or remnant bag of amazingly designed fabrics and linens to make a quilt in time for some Christmas presents! Or maybe just filling a beautiful handmade book with photographs or sketches might be more my thing. Here's what caught my eye, and of course, do have a gander at my shop too!
Book with Deer Print by Monkey Puzzle Press
Fabric remnants by Repeat
Sweet bird print by Koelle Art Shop
Seedlings Patterns by September House

Out and about...

Blog-worthy as of late.
A Plate a day: Heather Dahl
Nothing Elegant with a post on things you didn't know you needed until now.

A Plate a Day

I recently found the blog, A Plate a Day, and A Cup a Week, and really love the premise for the site! If you've ever seen the Lark books - 500 Teapots, or 500 Bowls, this is kind of like a coffee table book online with something new everyday. The blog is having a little 100 post competition to send them the URL to your favourite plate online, and while I can think of many a favourite plates by other potters out there, this is my own most favourite plate of my own as of late. I may have to do a few submissions by tomorrow, but I'm certainly interested in what will actually make the 100th Post!

Solo Show!

Well my solo show at the Gallery of BC Ceramics has been one I've been planning for all year since I was invited to do the show last November! I had to make a lot of work to commit to this show and feel like I accomplished a lot already! The show officially opens this coming Saturday, July 4th from 1-3pm, and will be up for the month of July! I have some lovely little surprises in the show so come on out if you are on Granville Island at all this summer! I still have one kiln-load to unload and then it's photo-shoot time with my photographer extraordinaire: Curtis Hildebrand! So I'd better be off!

still buzzin'

Yesterday morning a wave of fatigue hit me (I ran a red light on the way to the studio- that should have been my first clue not to forget coffee in the morning! Ahhh) and my studio mate Grace saved the day with a bit of caffeine and a little help painting poppies on mugs for me to keep me going! Thanks to Grace I got my second glaze done (which I will pull out later tonight), and then it's 'only' a mere 2 to go before it's all done! My bisque (first firing for those unfamiliar with clay language) is firing today so I had a good day of making slip for my slip-cast vases, picking up my vinyl decal for the show and being with the boys.

Busy day, busy week...

It's a really busy week as Dean leaves on Friday for a week in Yellowknife, school and daycare/preschool are ending, and my solo show opens in a mere 2 weeks!!!!! Yikes. So I'm going to get right to it and will be loading 3 glaze kilns and 1 bisque this week, hoping that everything turns out in my firings as I have no room for re-fires and can't start over again even if I wanted to. Here's hoping! Have a great week - the poppytalk handmade market has been down for about a week now due to them needing a new server, but once that kicks in again, I'll hopefully post a little give-a-way in time for some summer fun!
PS I also have another professional photo session in the works for next monday so stay tuned for some beautiful photographs.. Thanks so much Curtis!

Ellen from The Long Thread posted some lovely etsy finds on her blog this past week and included my turquoise poppy teapot!

Saying so-long Spring, hello Summer!

Well one last tulip shot before we get into Irises, poppies and all the other summer flowers that have begun to bloom out in my yard. It's going to be a glorious weekend here in the city, and I'm off to the studio to work towards my solo show at the BC Gallery of Ceramics! Stay tuned and have a great weekend!

My weekend linocut project!

This weekend I worked on a lino-cut project for some little thank you cards! Thank you cards don't have to be big- sometimes smaller ones are great for little notes and a personalized one with a hand-printed lino-cut can be a lovely way to say thanks. I haven't done a lino-cut in years- my memories of linocuts are from grade 9 art class where the lino was so stiff you would have to put so much pressure and effort into carving it and invariably you would stab yourself with the carving tool! The new 'speedball' soft carving plates are really easy and quick to carve. In no time I had my thank you cards finished and printed off!

So pretty...

I went to the florist before my big interview to pick up some flowers for my vases and I fell in love with these ones in peach and red. Can't remember their name now but my how pretty!