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.)