Emily Carr University at Circle Craft

It's the end of a long week and I quickly snuck away from all the studio glazing that's going on to check out booth designs and see what Kelly Austin, my studio assistant from this past summer, has been up to in her last year at ECUAD.  Kelly and I had talked this summer about the opportunity that came up for her and another ceramic/industrial design student, Darcy Greiner, to represent Emily Carr's Ceramics Department with their work at Circle Craft.  I'm not sure that I would have been ready in my 3rd or 4th year to put together such a venture, but these two certainly were.  Their work looked lovely side-by-side, and I was blown away by the concepts that both students were conveying in the way the work was made and the execution of it.  The work is all about forms and innovation in formal design, which is so refreshing to see! 

 Kelly's table setting on an 8 ft long table is stunning!  The simple gradation of gray scale, the stacking of each table setting and the angles of each piece really speaks to her simple and modern aesthetic.  I was also a huge fan of some new work that she's been busy working on.  Rock-like forms with a wheat coloured clay with a stoney pale green interior... WANT.  Also loved her little creamer spout.

 Darcy's work blew my mind.  I will fully confess that from looking at the pie form (photo here) on it's own I didn't get it.  Putting the pieces of the pie together, I sort of got it.  Stacking the vessel forms inside the pieces of the pie in various formations...now I'm starting to see.  Brilliantly, this guy is re-thinking the mold into units that can be re-configured for each slip-cast pour.  Smart molds = smart forms.  Ingenious, people.  I can't wait to see where this guy ends up.  You can bet I'll be at his grad show next year, completely mesmerized at what he's come up with. 

 
So there you have it. I had a lovely chat with my my old ceramics instructor, Paul Mathieu, who, as always, had the brightest orange jeans/ green sweater combo I've seen in a long time.  I realized I had truly missed this man.  9 years after graduating and all of a sudden I wanted to be back at the Emily Carr ceramics studio with all the enthusiasm and delusional optimism of a ceramics career before me.  Well, no, that's not quite true.  I'm glad that some realism has sunk in and that my years of hard work to forge a career after graduating have started to finally pay off:)
Have a great weekend- I'll be in the studio glazing to get ready for my up-coming shows starting next weekend! Yikers!

On the dark walk home

Tuesdays and Thursdays are my days to stay later at the studio and I take the bus home in the dark.  The one advantage to this routine is walking by the molo design studio front and seeing what they are up to... looks like ceramics, but actually it's a paper cup with a marble base called their capello lights.  I love how they put up a display at the end of each day- even just one of their dividers, so when someone looks in the window they are instantly inspired.

Looks like they now have an online shop!  How exciting!!

Around town...

my teapot has been spotted! A dear friend from high school days just face booked me this photo of a bus with my teapot on the side of it for the up-coming One of a Kind Show (Thanks Shana:)!  How GREAT is that?!  I hear there is also a billboard on Expo Boulevard...

Inspiring dahlhaus: Art Nouveau Designs

all images found on the NYPL Digital Gallery, using the key-word Design

It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of anything that came out of the Art Nouveau era.  I love the pattern, the boldness of the prints and the combination of colours that I see in the wallpapers or textiles that came out of this period.  As I recently browsed through the NYPL's Digital Gallery, I was again inspired by 2 designers who's work I hadn't seen before.

I'm loving the designs by Henri Gillet, a pattern designer who lived from the late 1800's-1920.  There's not much information out there in internetland about him.  I can't quite get over the windmill pattern- how lovely is that!?!

The last image has textile designs by Eugene Alain Seguy, an art-nouveau designer from the early 20's.  I've always loved the colour-scheme of the art-nouveau designers- all those mid-range colours together with hits of lime or peach with grey. 

Fall Confetti

Winter Wreath

 A few weeks ago I found an old atlas at the thrift store and the other day I thought I'd make some ornaments out of them.  What started out as an ornament quickly grew into a wreath idea, although you could just as easily hang this kind of like bunting. It's the kind of project that was easy to do with the boys the other day- Sasha just loves using my paper cutter and all the bits of double-sided tape were right up his alley too.  And really, outside of some paper scraps, it's super quick to clean up.

So here's the idea, you cut some pretty paper, preferably with a pattern on both sides into 1/2 inch strips, about 10" in length.  You need some double-sided tape or little glue tabs and that's it for materials.  I'll let Sasha walk you through the next little bit:

Ok did you catch that?  A little double sided tape in the middle of one strip, add another at a cross, repeat with the tape so you end up with a star (4 strips).  Fold over the bottom strip and connect the ends, and then fold over the opposite side and add your tape on each end.  For this project do the same to the other side but the opposite way around.  Now make another one of these, but after you've connected the first two strips, connect the next two to the inside of the first loops you made.  Keep on going until the very end.  The connection seems to be a little stronger when it's looped in like this. And as for hanging it on the inside of a door or on a wall, I used the double sided tape to keep it a little rounder, although here's hoping that it won't peel off the paint when it's all said and done.  

Of course you could just make ornaments or bows for presents.  Whatever suits you!

We Remember

Give-a-way announced..

First off, I wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who entered my give-a-way this past week, for spending the time checking out my new work and for giving me feed-back.  Your feed-back and comments are invaluable to me as I strive to make the best work I can possibly make.  I read every comment, wrote each name down, twice if you 'liked' dahlhaus art on facebook and got Dean to draw a name.  Out of approximately 185 entries we picked:

 Jeanie wrote: 'Everything is so lovely but I adore the stripes collection!'
 Thank you Jeanie- please email me (heather@dahlhausart.com) with your address and choice of a mug or bottle vase for me to send your way!

There's a lovely mention on my Stripe Collection over at Art Hound (Thank you Kate!).  Some of you were asking about where to purchase the vases or teapots. Some of the work from my photoshoot has already been sold and I'm in the process of making more.  I've listed one of my tall striped vases on etsy here, more to come...(vases drying out on the shelf as we speak:)

Travel Bug

 Balloons over Gerome by John Rawlinson on Flickr

My traveling days have been put aside these past few years and I had slowly let the ol' passport expire.  Having 2 small children, trying to make a go of it as a ceramic artist, and not having a lot of extra traveling money has meant all of my trips over the past 5 years have been within Canada.  Finally, after royally procrastinating all summer long, I got down to the Passport office to get the kids and I passports and we got them in the mail this past thursday.  Just holding my passport in my hands did it for me.  All of a sudden the Mediterranean was calling me.  I was drooling over photos of Hot Air ballooning in Turkey and I can't stop reading Hither and Thither's latest Travelogue about Sardinia.  And invariably I'm dreaming about where we can go with our kids in tow.   Certainly a lot more challenging and expensive.  And going on a trip with all of Dean's family this spring to Disneyland is not going to cut it for me...

Burlap find

Dean and I were at the cafe having our weekly coffee and croissant date and I noticed a pile of burlap coffee sacks in the back room.  Casually asking what they do with the sacks, the barista informed me that they just throw them out!  Well, of course, I get kind of excited- ooo, can I take a few off your hands?  and my head starts spinning about what I could make with coffee sacks, since burlap is kind of 'in' right now.  Sure enough I get about 5 great sacks to bring home- with spray-painted letters and lines and logos of coffee companies all over the world.  Loving it!  Thinking about wrapping a few around canvas frames for some 'art' or even around a needlepoint frame and doing some cross-stitch into it for fun.  Then I start wondering if there are other shops on Etsy that are have come up with some creative solutions with burlap coffee sacks, and sure enough, there are!  I don't have a sewing machine at the moment, but was loving their ideas for re-using coffee sacks, and not having them end up in the landfill.

In order as they appear:
5 Pocket Organizer by mcldrygoods on Etsy
California Coffee Sack Pillow by shawnee23 on Etsy
Coffee Tote by ShaggyBaggy on Etsy
Coffee Bag Laptop Case by labudde on Etsy

Thank you everyone who has come by my blog in recent days to enter the give-a-way, which is on for a couple more days!  It's really great to hear which collection you like and why!

Forgotten Stripes

I had forgotten that I've made striped pots before.  The brain is interesting that way, you have an idea, you try it, you move on and then you somehow come back full circle to that idea without being fully conscious of it.  

A few months ago I visited a friend at her place and she served me tea in an old teapot of mine.   Circa 2004?  maybe 2005?  Well, I really did like the pot at the time, I still like the pot, except for the wimpy handle. But isn't that spout cute?  

Anyways, I took photos of the pots, thinking that someday I'd show some of my old work on my blog, and that how 6 years later, someone is still serving tea out of my teapot (now that's an investment!) and then I forgot about it.  Until this morning, when I started glancing through my image files.  With all the striped love you've been showing me, dear readers, I thought I'd show you my first striped pot.  Well might have been my first striped pot.  There might be another one out there in the world that I don't remember about.

Hooray! A give-a-way!

Hello, hello!  Well, here it is, it's finally here.  Little peeps and tweets later.  My website has been fully up-dated with all my latest work!  The shop is stocked with lovely handmade pots ready for all the Holiday mayhem that is about to ensue.  I've got a new favourite mug in hand and I'm ready to celebrate!  And what a better way than by hosting a give-a-way?!

A huge thank-you, for starters, goes out to my photographer and web developer (who did the up-date from his holiday in New Zealand for me!) for another great job helping me out with launching not one, but two new collections of ceramics!!  I'd also like to thank my summer assistant Kelly who helped me get all my wholesale orders finished this summer so I could have some time this September developing ideas that were on the back-burner for way too long.  Kudos to you folks!

Now for the give-a-way contest.  So here's how it will work this time around.  I don't believe I've ever asked you to visit my shop during a give-a-way, but this time around, I will.  Please visit my shop.  Stay awhile.  Click on work you like because there are some surprises, some goodies you might like.  And then comment about which collection you like.  There are about 4 right now:  my classic Poppy collection, the Yellow Ginkgo collection, the Stem Collection, and then the Stripe Collection.  I'd love to know if you have a preference.  Me- I can't decide quite yet.  But usually I'm smitten with the latest thing I've made, and I'm kind of biased to boot;)

So- entry #1- visit my shop, choose a collection
entry #2- become a fan of dahlhausart on facebook.  Don't forget to post on this page to confirm that you decided to 'like me'! 

That's 2 chances to win.  Win what? oh, well here's the good part.  You get to choose between a mug or a bottle vase from my stem or stripe collections!  Choices, choices.  Will it be this mug or this mug?  This vase or this vase?  Oh yes, either would make a lovely gift if you can bear to pass it along to someone else.
I'll be choosing a winner one week from today, Wednesday November 10th.  Best of luck to you, bon chance and thanks for stopping by!

Curious Cranes

 For some reason I keep finding myself wanting to take photos of cranes of all kinds.  I even go out of my way to walk over the bridge to take photos of them. Not just any crane, one with the room on top.  Or what looks like a room.  Would they need to sleep in there?  Is it cozy with a bed and a table that might get used during break time?  Is it extra office space or does a whole crew work inside one of these while they build ships or move train bridges around?  Curious. 
I'm currently doing a  painting of the last image- couldn't help myself.  Every time I drove over the bridge and caught a glimpse of it I wanted to paint it. I really loved the curved side and the elevator thing.  Hopefully it will be ready in time for the Eastside Culture Crawl at the end of the month...

Happy Halloween!

We are carving pumpkins and putting up decorations for tomorrow's Halloween festivities.  The boys are both 'ninja spies'.   We'll be at the neighbour's place for some fireworks after the kids do some trick-or-treating in the neighbourhood tomorrow night- should be fun:)

Introducing: The Stem Collection

You know how they say that necessity is often the mother of invention.  Well that's a little bit how my latest stem series started for me.  I had a few too many bad batches of my red glaze this summer- the glaze I use for my poppies and the only commercial glaze that I use.  After several frustrating firings and a whole lot of bad poppies, I felt I had to come up with an alternative.  Plus, after making pots with poppies on them for 2 years now, I was getting a little tired of making them.  Don't get me wrong.  The poppy design came out of an old painting of mine that I re-worked into a glaze design on a mug, so my heart is still into making that series. I just felt like a change had come.

The stem series is kind of like a 'variation on a theme' for me.  Taking elements from both my Ginkgo stem design- namely the stem, and playing around with the shape of the poppy- making it more of a teardrop shape with the center of the bloom coming out of the stem, and thinking about a hollyhock- which has flowers and leaves coming off a tall stem and voila! the idea was formed.  Playing around with the glaze colours was next.  I'm such a turquoise/yellow/green kind of gal.  Really, pinks and purples don't even enter my wardrobe, let alone my ceramics.   I hummed and thought and tried and failed a few times before coming up with these glazes colours.  Literally there were sleepless nights.  But I'm pleased and loving the combos.  Best of all I like that I can switch it up a whole lot.  Blue, dk brown or pale yellow centers, with a few different turquoise blooms.  Green stem and leaves.  And I'm loving it!

I've just started putting the work up in my shop and on my Etsy shop- more to come soon... It's ready to ship- get it before the holiday shipping costs kick in, I say:) And please, let me know what you think about the new work!