Penland

It’s been just over 2 years since I made the big switch to earthenware.  If you are interested in seeing the progress you can go back in the Archives (right sidebar) to January 2008 and move forward from there.

Just to give you an idea of where I started, here is the  post I made after my first glaze firing. Click HERE.

And here is a platter from that period.

And a recent platter:

There have been some significant steps along the way.  Doug and Hannah have both been very encouraging and have turned me on to loads of great pots.

I have looked at Margaret Brampton’s pots for encouragement on using color.

Of course my two weeks at Penland with Ayumi Horie were very influential for me.    I came back from that experience and jumped in feet first into my decoration.  That’s been 8 months ago now and while I continue to work with red clay, white slip, clear and colored glazes I feel like my decoration is becoming more and more my own.  I am certainly putting more time than ever into drawing on my pots.  I was fortunate in that I had put many years into working on my forms when I was making salt glaze.  It’s nice not to have too many problems to work on at once.

Right after I left Penland I became fascinated with Medieval Majolica from Italy.  Thankfully there are some nice images on the Internet.  See Here for one.

I moved up from that time period to more current Italian majolica,1500, 1600′s.   And then on to pots that were made in this country in the 1700 and 1800′s.

Thank goodness for the Internet and all it’s resources.

When I first thought about making earthenware pots I knew I wanted them to be fun and accessible.  I think I am accomplishing that.  It’s neat to see how humorous some of the old English slipware was.

Living out here in the country of NC offers many subjects for my work.  I’ve spoken before about how we are surrounded by cows and goats, squirrels and rabbits.  Most recently I’ve started incorporating more flowers and foliage into the decoration.  I imagine that will certainly pick up speed as the honeysuckles begin to flower and the garden takes shape.  I look forward to that.

Well, I just wanted to do a bit of a recap.  It’s good for me and I know I could have certainly gone into more depth here on various areas.  For now, I’d best get out to the studio and make some bowls.  I hope you all have a good week.