Empty Bowls

During the Puyallup Fair, all the potters do demos and get an opportunity to show their process. The customers in turn love to see what goes behind going a piece of pottery. It is a great way to show people the effort that goes behind every piece we potters make.

Most of the potters at the fair do demos making bowls for the empty bowl project. Some potters throw the bowls, other might trim them and others decorate them. It is a great collabrative project. You can find more information about the empty bowls project here. http://www.emptybowls.net/

This year there were some beautifully thrown and trimmed bowls, which I decorated. I decorated these with a black slip and spent a lot of time on each one of these. These were then glazed by Dianne Kimball who does beautiful pottery too. She choose some great colors for these bowls which really highlighted the decoration. Attached is a picture taken by her... I wish I could see them in person, but they are already sold. Glad to know the money from that sale will be feeding someone in need.

Diwali Diyas

Diwali is a beautiful festival of lights celebrated by Hindus all over the world. You can call it the Hindu's Christmas. There is cleaning of the house, decoration, giving gifts, and lighting the house with diyas.

Diyas are small oil candles usually made of clay. They are lit with ghee (clarified butter) or oil with a handrolled cotton wick. With modern times and people being more cautious of fire hazards, you can find several in wax like candles too. I make these unique diyas or tealight candle holders which have Indian motif stamps on them. When lit up they look just beautiful. The light hits the designs in just the right angles creating beautiful shadows. Do check them out in my etsy shop. http://creativewithclay.etsy.com/

Butter dishes

I have been working on butter dishes for more than a year now. Seems like a long time but it takes time to get the design of any product final. My challenge was to create butter dishes with lids in which one could keep a stick of butter.

Throwing these is an option, but that resulted in round butter dishes. Keith from Mudstuffing pottery makes an excellent design where they are thrown and altered. http://mudstuffing.setupmyblog.com/?p=269

I wanted to extrude them and after making several dies, I really like what I have now. In addition to having a lid these butter dishes also have space to keep you butter knife on the top of the lid under the handle. They remind me of palaquins or dolis or palkis which are these beautifully adorned carriers for women in India. The bride got into them and the men carried her in these palaquins to the husband's house.

They are not fired yet, but they are big enough to fit a stick of butter. Hopefully I will glaze them soon and post them on Etsy.

New forms: Sugar and creamer

I have made small jars before. But after meeting with Ginger Steele (http://creativewithclay.blogspot.com/2008/09/pottery-trade.html) I was interested in trying some small creamers too. She is such an inspiration to push your limits and trying something new. A great potter to talk to.

These were thrown on the wheel, then altered to be oval. Using Ginger's method of templates I made the spout for the creamer. They were then decorated with slip. I like the way they turned out and I hope they look good when glazed.