Vases on the Table

Bulldog Pottery, Seagrove, NC

Daffie Days is this weekend on April 4-5, 2014.  Our Bulldog Pottery shop is located at 3306 US Hwy 220 Alt. Seagrove, NC 27341.  We are located 5 miles south from the town of Seagrove's traffic light. Look for the large blue water tower and our driveway is right beside it.  Take the gravel driveway to our pottery shop. See you soon!

The exploration of the vase form is fascinating to us, with so many possible nuances. Vases as well as the bottle forms provide us with such a diversity of great silhouettes for our glazes.  We enjoy the process of the search, and experimentation involved in looking and testing for new colors and glaze effects. Testing original glaze formulas takes a lot of time, and we have to figure out how to squeeze in a couple of more days to get the test glazing accomplished. Usually when the tests come out there is hopefully at least one that can work, and the others will have to go back to the drawing board. Below is an assortment of some of the glaze tests that we pulled out from the last two kiln firings.

Glaze tests, Bulldog Pottery, Seagrove, NC

Samantha and a table full of vases, Bulldog Pottery, Seagrove, NC 

The glazes that we apply to our vases are very fluid and it takes time prepping the rings so they fit just right onto the bottom of the vases. Below Bruce is carving the rings thinner so when cutting the ring off the vase after the glaze firing there is less chance for a mishap.

Bruce finishing clay rings for the vases, Bulldog Pottery, Seagrove, NC 

Koi insists on sleeping on Bruce's table while he works. Sometimes this is just fine and we let her but other times she messes with the wet pots and is banned from table sleeping.

Luna Bella has settled right in. She loves to be with us in the studio. She is very active and has been a wonderful puppy.  Luna Bella and Koi have a great relationship and we think they will be long time friends. Sometimes Koi will even push objects off of the table just for Luna Bella to chew.

Luna Bella, Bulldog Pottery, Seagrove, NC

We currently have this lovely pink centered daffodil blooming, and the color is enchanting.

Vases, Daffodils, Ice, and Podcasts

Bulldog Pottery vases for "Daffie Days" April 4-5, 2014, Seagrove, NC

This morning we woke up to a veil of ice on our world.  Wonderful opportunity to go outside to take pictures.

We are glazing in the studio for our upcoming vase kiln opening "Daffie Days", April 4-5, 2014, from 10:00 - 5:00. We have over 100 vases ready for glazing.  We are in the process of preparing them for our glaze-a-thon.  The table full of vases shown are thrown by both of us.

Save the Date for the annual Celebration of Spring Seagrove Pottery Kiln Openings. Around 35 potteries will be participating this year on April 26-27, 2014.  You can pick up a map of participating potteries in our studio.

Check out this weeks podcast from Ben Carter "Tales of a Red Clay Rambler". This week Ben released the podcast that was recorded last week at the North Carolina Potters Conference.  The episode features Ben Carter and Brian Jones presenting on "Pottery, Podcasting and Posterity" to a wonderful audience at the Sunset Theater in Asheboro, NC. In the interview they talk about creative competition, social media as ceramic advocacy, and developing a podcasting style.  While you are at it check out the rest of his podcasts. Ben interviews a variety of nationally and internationally known potters. Also check out the podcasts by Brian Jones, which are called the "Jonescast",  he also has a wonderful variety of interviews with potters.

Daffodil at Bulldog Pottery, Seagrove, NC

Daffodil at Bulldog Pottery, Seagrove, NC

Daffodil at Bulldog Pottery, Seagrove, NC

Bulldog Pottery vases for "Daffie Days" April 4-5, 2014, Seagrove, NC

The Ubiquitous Daffodil

Daffodil at Bulldog Pottery, Seagrove, NC

The beginning of spring. 

Our icon of flowers. 

The ubiquitous daffodil. 

We  look forward to this time of year.  When the daffodils begin to bloom and we know that warm weather will be here soon.  In the Bulldog Pottery studio we are throwing vases of various shapes with a focus on our crystalline flowing glazes.  

"Daffie Days"

April 4-5, 2014

Friday and Saturday 10:00am -5:00pm

at Bulldog Pottery 3306 US Hwy 220 Alt. Seagrove, NC 27341

5 miles south of the town of Seagrove look for the blue water tower

Vase by Samantha Henneke, Bulldog Pottery, Seagrove, NC

The Tempo Picks Up

Vase by Bruce Gholson, Seagrove, North Carolina

We are filling our work tables with vases. Daffodils are in strong bloom, a bit early this year.  Daffie Days is around the corner on March 30- April 1 and after glazing the vases, we plan a kiln load of Moka and shino glazed pottery for the Celebration of Spring with the Seagrove Potters on April 21&22, and we also have a show coming up at the PAF Gallery in Siler City beginning March 16-April 13.  Upcoming shows and deadlines have pulled us out of our January hibernation of organizing, creative thinking, cleaning up, projects, reading, researching, writing, and a myriad of other activities that can fill our day.  The life as a self-employed artist is full of crescendos, with sometimes at certain points in the composition, we hold the volume up at top level for a length of time. That tempo can make even the most fit person breathe heavily. We need to allow ourselves some organic uncontrolled time, and we did this past January and it sure felt good.  I was reading a book and it mentioned that to keep up artistic motivation and creative thinking one must be healthy, eat well, and get plenty of sleep.  Sometimes the plenty of sleep is just not possible, and eating must be pared down to quick simple meals.  Life as a professional artist is an ongoing arrangement of making time to get the work done and balancing that with a healthy life style.

The Vase

Vase by Samantha Henneke (18"x4")- Winner of Honorable Mention on Vasefinder 2012

The Vase
Both Bruce and I have focused many hours at the wheel in our studio, designing different variations of the vase.  There are numerous approaches and there is an incredible historic precedence in the exploration of the vase as form.  We find it a traditional pottery form that we always enjoy getting back to and reinterpreting.  Bruce and I will sometimes play back and forth in the studio when working out different curves and nuances. One of us will start a rhythm and the other will feed off it, and work out the silhouette in their own way.  We also have certain variations of the vase that we seem to be drawn to individually.  Whether it is tall and slender like my vase above or round and gourd like, the vase form provides an excellent shape for us to explore glazes and surface development.

I am honored to be awarded a Honorable Mention by juror John Glick for the Vasefinder Internationals 2012.  This online vase show is hosted by Charles Blim of Vasefinder. Vasefinder is a membership based website whose advocacy is for the ceramic artist and the pottery profession.

To see all of the exhibitors in this show check out Vasefinder Nationals 2012.

Bulldog Pottery Vases for the American Art Pottery Show and Sale

Vase by Bruce Gholson. around 18" tall

Well we are almost all packed up and ready for travel. We are headed north to Langhorne, Pennsylvania for the American Art Pottery Association Conference. We have been working steadily at throwing and glazing vases the past few months. We are happy with the results from our last two firings. We are always learning, and constantly being reminded that our glazes are very sensitive to slight variables, and seem to have a mind of their own. That is one of the characteristics that we like the most about these glazes, though occasionally it can be painful. A subtle change or maybe not so subtle change (like which one of us glazed the vase) can bring about different shapes of crystals or tones of coloration. We remember hearing someone say once "That is a complex color", and like to hear our glazes referred to in that way. Some of the colors we find hard to describe in one or two words. So yes these glaze colors can be complex, and can take on hues that we have not seen before like the last one on this post. Unfortunately it is sometimes very difficult to reproduce some effects, and we must be flexible and enjoy the variety that all these complex variables produce. I did not think to measure the height of these vases (one step I seem to always forget to note down) so we will approximate the size.

This is the other side of the vase above

a glaze detail, we love it when the crystals continue to grown into each other forming this overall iridescent shimmer to the surface

thrown by Bruce Gholson, this vase is around 18" tall

Thrown by Bruce Gholson, this vase is around 12" tall

Thrown by Samantha Henneke, this vase is around 16" tall

Thrown by Samantha Henneke, this vase is around 15" tall

Thrown by Samantha Henneke, this vase is around 16" tall

Thrown by Bruce Gholson, this vase is around 9" tall

Thrown by Bruce Gholson, this vase is around 11" tall

(This is the other side)

Thrown by Samantha Henneke, this vase is around 18" tall

Thrown by Samantha Henneke, this vase is around 14" tall

Vases

We are both throwing a variety of vase forms to be vehicles for flowers. We are getting ready for Daffie Days, celebrating the blooming of spring. This series of vases I threw a couple of days ago, have a wide opening to suit a group of flowers. Bruce said these look similar to Italian apothecary jars. Sure enough I just looked it up and these are apothecary forms. This is my first time throwing this particular form. It was definitely fun, and I am looking forward to throwing more. My tendency lately had been to throw bud vase forms with a small opening and longer waisted torso, somewhat like a wasp. These new forms should handle a good sized bundle of blooms.