Gift Certificates! Now Available

Still wondering what to buy for Christmas and just cannot decide with time running out? Here is an opportunity to purchase a Gift Certificate from my shop Creative with Clay and give the gift of unique hancrafted pottery to someone you care for.

These certificates are redeemable towards any item in my shop and shipping. I have certificates of different amounts listed in my shop under gift certificates.
Feel free to contact me if you would like a different amount and I will be glad to make a special listing.

And if you do see something you like in my shop, there still is time. Order before December 20th to get your order before Christmas.

Best wishes and have a great Holiday Season!

New Form and New Item

As an artist, I always find it challenging and fun to create new forms. I had been thinking of some sort of wall art decoration with tiles for a long time. In my head I had thought of countless ways of making them. Square, round, paisley shapes etc... I wanted a three dimensions look and every process I went through was very tedious and not really getting to the look I wanted. Handbuilding with slabs required a lot of scoring/slipping and making sure the slabs didn't loose form and split. Thought of working with molds, but then I didn't want everything to look exactly the same.
Then just sitting on the couch one day (day dreaming my clay ideas), I made the connection between pillows and the beautiful farbics they are covered in. Aha! I will make them like pillows and decorate them as though they were covered in embroidered fabric.
Then of course started the process of how to make the pillow shapes. Thought of slabs of clay first, but then went back to one of my favorite eqiupment in the studio, my extruder. I made a die shaped in the form of a leaf and there I had my form. Of course there was a struggle with closing up the ends and cleaning them up, but I think I have the process down.
As a functional potter, I sometimes crave for everything to have a function. I know that even wall art has a function, i.e. to decorate a wall. So I decided to turn these into wall clocks. I absolutely love the way they turn out. I also like the fact that the hardware all gets hidden inside the pillow shape.




Interesting thing was when I posted the picture below on facebook, I asked people to guess what they were. I was amazed by the creative ideas everyone had like salt pepper shakers, vases, pencil holder, bread warmer, etc.. Someone finaly did guess them to be wall clocks. But this got me thinking that I could really make so many different items from this same basic shape and different sizes. So keep looking out for some new work coming to my shop as pillow shapes.



The original idea for wall decor is still something I am working on. For starters, I made several smaller size pillows as seen in the picture below. Can't wait till they are fired and installed on a wall.