Inside, outside, upside down

Having grown up working with textiles, I still mix my metaphors and borrow techniques. People often ask about the “appliques” I put on many of my pots. They are great fun and can thematize or personalize any stoneware. I make molds out of clay and simply fire them unglazed. For the shapes, I use seashells, small toy plastic animals, real seed pods or corn cobs---just about anything that strikes me as a potentially interesting and transferable shape when reversed. I use a few commercially produced molds as well.

I particularly like the contrast of creating figures from my buff clay and applying them to pumpkin pots (that is, made over pumpkins) that are made of darker clay. The contrast works well with my usual glazing and firing process: bisque firing and then brushing on a black glaze, wiping most of that off, and applying a clear glaze and my signature rim of “Saturation Gold” (which is simply dark with metallic highlights unless applied heavily). The clays are all non-toxic and the glazes all food safe when properly fired.

The appliques can go on anywhere inside or outside a pot. I enjoy watching students learn to handbuild so that the surface they want to use is the one exposed. It becomes automatic over time, but challenges some---and is perhaps most difficult for potters accustomed to throwing on a wheel and having both sides available for embellishment. In my studio, since pots are frequently upside down when they are made (typically by draping and pressing clay down over a pumpkin or other round object) and any inscriptions or additions are applied, I can always tell which students did well in geometry. As much as I love spacial challenges, I have carefully put in place (after scoring and adding slip) more than one figure that would have been permanently up-side down when the pot was flipped right side up!

PHAR

I am doing a switch with this blog and telling you about Potomac Highlands Animal Rescue, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Hardy County, West Virginia, does not have a shelter for rescues and strays, but it has several brave and persistent women who devote considerable time to rescuing animals and finding them foster or permanent homes. Small dogs and cats have a good chance of being homed through animal agencies in DC and Northern Virginia, but larger dogs are always an issue--- particularly if they have never been allowed to live inside a home, which is too often the case out here. PHAR also helps arrange for pets to be neutered or spayed, which helps tremendously with the overpopulation issues.

For several years, Lost River Artisans’ Co-op has sponsored PHAR fundraisers. We set up in the gazebo, post signs all over the Lost River Valley and State Park, and arrange for Chestina, our local PHAR rep, to bring the van and some animals. After the first event, Chestina went home with more cats than she came with; thank goodness we have not done that again! We raffle off donated prizes, sell healthy dog biscuits (containing the stuff WE probably should all be eating), and have a good time. For a change of pace, last year I began making quilted potholders to sell at the co-op between events. Those have proved very popular and all of the money goes to PHAR. A more deserving group I can’t imagine! Visit Lost River Artisans’ Co-op; there are new potholders in the basket!

 

Healthy dog biscuits*

3 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup cornmeal

1 cup oats

2/3 cup instant nonfat dry milk powder

2 tablespoons garlic powder

1½ cups chicken broth

½ cup corn oil

2 eggs

The ingredients, when combined, may either be rolled flat and cut out, or shaped into small balls and flattened before baking for about 40-50 minutes at 340˚ F. They last indefinitely when thoroughly baked and dry. I’ve never met a dog who does not like them!

*From No barking at the Table (Howell Books, 1996).