New Herringbone Dip Trays for Fall

You might have seen my sneak peeks of these herringbone trays on my Instagram feed or Fb page  over the summer.  Recently when I dropped off work at one of my local galleries, one of the staff asked whether I had any of the herringbone trays in my box.  Well, I'm kind of slow when it comes to new work.  Slowly but surely I sort out how I'm going to make multiples of a new design.  I like to make sure I have the right clay for the job (I chose the most white, and luxurious porcelain for these plates), the right glazes and the right pattern combination to bring it all together.  I try to sort out all the trouble shooting I can (porcelain can be so pernickety).  So these trays are kind are the beginning of what I hope will be more to come.  I currently have another slab mould drying out for a smaller/deeper rectangle version of these trays (they will look so sweet together!).  I have been making more of my pattern templates, based on other designs that I usually use as glaze patterns.  I've been mixing some new glazes to add (because we all know I love colour!)  Everything in ceramics takes a little time. 

I've been envisioning these as a great lunch or breakfast plate, the perfect collection of plates for a party (because they stack so well), or a luxury catch all for jewelry on one's dresser.  They can now be purchased here!  More to come soon!

Shop Up-date and a SALE!

My shop has a fresh new look along with some new photos from the mini-photography session I had with Vancouver Photographer Byron Dauncey last week!  I have been working on new vase forms and new designs off and on all spring, and was hoping to do a complete website over-haul along with a formal photography shoot and road-blocks just kept coming up with the timing on it all.  So I'm happy to report that there is always a way out of every timing mess- a mini-shoot, a new webshop design (courtesy of BigCartel) and it's all looking pretty good for the summer, if you ask me!

Please head over and check out the new work!  I keep seeing such lovely bouquets at farmer's markets or just on my walks in people's gardens so I'm offering a 15% discount on all the vases in my shop from now until August 15th!  Please use the code SummerSale for the discount- all the vases listed are ready to ship, with many of them being one-of-a-kind and in limited quantities!

A bit of new!

Well I ended up making a lot of custom work over the past month or so and, as with custom, making extras is the key! Now that the orders are almost all off and on their way, I have some of the extra pieces I'll be posting in my Etsy shop as I seem to have gotten some positive feedback on the new shades and styles of vases I have been working on. 

I recently had a short turn-around request for a large order with a design firm for a show home with some of my new vases in my classic glazed stripes.  They asked if I would be able to create a custom yellow glaze for the design and sent me a swatch of fabric they were trying to match.  As luck would have it, the yellow stain I thought would be perfect for the fabric swatch was no longer available so I mixed 3 different stains and then glazed blind the order (with extras) for this new harvest yellow glaze, crossing my fingers it would turn out ok! I really like the new shade- it's got a wonderful golden glow to the yellow that I think I'll keep as part of my regular work for a while. 

Speaking of new, I am starting to really get the hang of my newest slip-cast glaze designs- the round cylinder 9" and 12.5" vases that you see above!  Over the past few years, I have been wheel-throwing my cylinder vases and was having trouble getting my grey glaze to fit the wheel-throwing clay body I have been using.  Lots of bubbles and blisters in the throwing body, silky smooth in the porcelain slip-casting body.  I also find it hard to sit at the wheel for long periods of time- I like to throw multiple shapes in one sitting, not just the same thing over and over.  So when I start dreading throwing, then I start planning how to make the design into a mould.

I currently have only 1 master-mould of each and they are not easy to cast, but I'm slowly figuring it out.  This big grey striped vase, along with 3 others that went to the show home, was the first of the big vases that actually turned out and didn't warp (longer casting time + very little handling when pulling the piece out of the mould = no warping :).  So I'm very excited about the new size and am looking forward to getting a few more of these finished in different colours.  These are real statement pieces- they really hold some presence and look great in a grouping!  

Lastly I have some new wheel-thrown vase designs I have been working on.  It has been nice to try out new forms and play with the herringbone pattern or colour dip pattern on them! These are ooak vases and perhaps at some point I would make a mould of them, but for now, I am enjoying the variety of them.  Slip-casting some of my work frees me up to explore new forms on the wheel and also new glazing designs, so there have been some big advantages for me to move into that direction, especially with vases.  On the other hand, I have spent the week on the wheel, throwing teapots and bowls, and I would never dream of slip-casting those pieces.  It's nice to still see the throwing lines in a bowl or on the inside of a teapot and I still cherish making these items in this way.  

Now for something completely different

There are times when I kick myself for making work that's so much work to make.   When I started
the dahlhaus collection, I wanted the work to stand out, to be recognized without having to turn over the bottom to see the stamp.  Using a complex glaze method (that I thought no one would be crazy enough to copy), I developed patterns and a glaze style that was uniquely my own.  All that to say that on the 3rd-4th day of glazing a kiln-load of work, my hands are tired and I wish I hadn't made it so complicated and hard on myself.  And then I pull out a glaze full of lovely patterns and I'm back to seeing why my work has stood out and is in demand and I love what I do.  I truly believe that work that is hard to make is worth making and really forges new ground within the history of a craft. 

All this to say, however, that there are times when I long for 'simple' and when I wish that that mere form and colour could inform the work.  Also the busyness of all the patterns all together can get a little overwhelming for me, and there are times when I think it would be nice to have a hit of simple colour in the midst of the patterns when they are all grouped together. 

So here it is, my slowly evolving colour-fade line of ceramics.  It's a small collection of work that I've been mulling over, occasionally deciding to glaze one or 2 pieces in a kiln load, just to see what I think.  This year I decided to be a bit more deliberate with this work.  I am in the process of thinking about a Rothco-inspired vase series with some taller cylinder vases, just trying to sort out how the lines and edges will over-lap to best create this work. With the images above, the bottom bowls are the first 'dipped' edges that I worked on back in 2010, and then last year for the blue and white show, I made the mugs, then before my last photoshoot, I worked on the vases and large bowl.  There are slight variations to how the white glaze meets the colour glaze that I was testing out.  Please don't hesitate to let me know what you think!

*Thank you to all those who have purchased teapots from my shop over the past couple of weeks that the Bon Appetit article has been out! I am glazing more teapots this week (and making more) and I very much appreciate the support of my work!

Triangle Party

I'm getting back to a few images from the last photo shoot, which I'm still trying to get onto the website in the near future.  It feels like I'm opening my Christmas presents before Christmas here, showing you all the good photos before the website gets it's yearly over-haul, but that's the way it goes sometimes.  These things all take time (and money)!

Since last year, I have continued with my triangle themed work but was trying to simplify the pattern.  I love the quilted pattern, but felt totally bogged down in the re-creation of the design for shops or to sell on my own.  If you know anything about how my designs come about, you'll know that this pattern is still a ton of tape, but that the triangles are a little bigger.  I simplified the colours, limiting it to the lighter shades of glaze that I have available.  We all know that glaze in the kiln likes to run vertically, this being a pattern that needs to be more precise and less 'painterly'.   Where the white glaze meets the coloured glaze is still a little fuzzy (which I like because it looks less like underglaze or decals and more like glaze), but less obvious then with the darker shades of glaze. 

Anyways, I'm still having fun with this design and am making a bunch of it to send off to The Flock in New Zealand! I have a few wholesale orders I'm currently working on and a huge project that I was doing a cost estimate for this past week.  We'll see if I get it in the end, but if not, it was one of those crazy opportunities that came across my desk that blows me away with the possibilities. 

I hope you are having a great week!