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Journal

News from Dowd House Studios: places to find our pottery, exhibitions, classes & workshops, new forms and exciting projects.

Filtering by Tag: jenny dowd pottery

New-ish Things

Jenny Dowd

Amongst pottery orders and the making of inventory for upcoming sales I’ve been trying to make time for new ideas and tests. This time a few new ideas came from a mistake and from trying to remember how to make a form.

It’s been awhile since I have made a coffee pour over & pitcher set. Making the forms ended up being the easy part, decorating was not as intuitive. I liked the idea of simple black and white areas with a diagonal line to emphasize the triangle of shapes in the forms. But after I brushed on the white and black underglazes I had no idea what to do.

I carved vertical lines into the white underglaze thinking I’d come up with an idea, but I also realized that my usual patterns might not work this time. I sat there lost for awhile and then the person working near me asked what my plan was. I’m still not used to working in a group studio after years of solitude in my old garage studio, so what a welcome conversation! I told him I had no idea and as we discussed ideas we both agreed that perhaps a shape or pattern was needed. He drew out a little triangle inside of a triangle and that clicked.

I liked how the pitcher and pour over set looked so much that the next day I made a few mugs with the same pattern.

These cups were supposed to be mugs. I threw the cylinders on the wheel and forgot to cover them with plastic. When I came into the studio the next day it hit me, can’t attach handles to dry clay. I bisque fired the cylinders and put them in a box, where they rode around in the back of my car for a few months.

Sam and I will be participating in a craft fair on February 12th, NW Arkansas Girl Gang Winter Market, right before Valentine’s Day. After being accepted to this sale I realized I should make a few Valentine’s gift items. Since the cups were already bisque fired, the surface was perfect to draw on with underglaze pencil.

This is a drawing I’ve made before, but the first time on cups. And it’s based on a true story, but it's not totally true because I am not a lamp. (Surprise!)

Sam and I met in college, in the clay studio of course, we immediately hit it off - like non-stop talking & laughing. We'd gone on maybe one date, but mostly just arranged our time to be in the studio together. Anyway, it had been a few weeks and we were obviously smitten.

One evening Sam had a really bad cold and came over to my house but wouldn't come in. He stood on the porch and through this super bad head cold told me that he really really liked me and that he wanted to use the other L word. But mostly he needed me to know right now that he really liked me. It was actually the sweetest thing ever and I knew it was something because it was the first time my roommates didn't make fun of my dating antics.

So there it is, the stories behind two new-ish things that I’ve been working on in the studio!

Storytelling

Jenny Dowd

Sometimes custom orders and funny stories turn into illustrated pottery. These are a few projects from recent months:

These mugs were custom ordered from an Aunt who wanted to celebrate and surprise her twin nieces, they grew up in Idaho and had just moved to New York to attend college on a hockey scholarship. Something to remind them of home but also where they were headed!

For these porcelain mugs I used an inlay technique to create the drawing in the damp clay. Each of the tiny black lines were drawn with an x-acto blade, filled in with black underglaze, and then wiped clean. The crisp black lines look like an ink drawing on the white porcelain clay. Two mugs, similar but different, just like the sisters.

Chainsaw mugs! A friend recently became certified to assist in disaster related tree removal as well as fire mitigation. WOW! To celebrate she commissioned mugs for her instructors.

This time I drew the chainsaws on bisque-fired clay with an underglaze pencil, this makes these awkward chainsaws just a little more comical. I filled in the drawing with red glaze and grey underglaze.

This one was unsolicited… I had an idea to turn a scary story into a sweet comforting gift. And it’s a long story, so let’s just hit the main points: house sitting + bomb cyclones & closed highways, mix in some tick infested dogs during a peak in lyme disease season and suddenly a tent pitched in the middle of the living room to sleep in at night doesn’t seem so weird.

This design was also drawn on the clay with underglaze pencils and filled in with layers of watered down underglaze. This time I used a clear glaze that I had not applied to this type of surface before and didn’t realize that some of the underglaze pencil lines would run. After waves of initial disappointment, I realized that the soft lines fit in more with my vision of a dark sky around the edge of the bowl, and perhaps the bunting on the outside is just wet from all that rain.

These are a few projects currently in progress, or in the case of the little 5-legged octopus (quintopus?) just starting to percolate. The octopus was my example made during the surface design class I am teaching at the Community Creative Center. While demonstrating sgraffito I started to draw a ghost and then mid-draw thought that might be boring and started adding legs. Of course there was not enough room! But this cute little mollusc came to life and now I’m considering adding it to my cast of characters.

The porcelain cups are in preparation for that quickly approaching February day. These lamps might be some of my favorite characters, especially when one finally leans in to admit a secret to the other. (Psst. I really like you.)