New Work Taken to Made in The Maritimes, December 19, 2017

Here are pics of new sculptures which were dropped off last week at Made in the Maritimes Artisan Boutique's Hydrostone location.

Huge thanks to Joel for carrying my work for the first time at this most busy time of the year! This iconic business supports a multitude of Maritime makers at two excellent Halifax retail locations (The Hydrostone Market and Sunnyside Mall) as well as via their online shop.

All of these pieces are cone 6 stoneware, and were fired in my electric kiln with a variety of commercial and studio-mixed glazes, underglazes, stains and slips.  They range in price from $35 for the smaller figurines to $225 for the largest sculptures.  

Although I often work in series, these are all 'one offs' as I do not use molds, stamps, stencils or transfers of any kind.   

First up are 6 larger sculptures:

This fox is approximately the size of a large pineapple (I think), and is the tallest piece of the group.

Moose.

 Skunk holding flower with "Om" symbol carved into its haunch, rabbit holding flower with yin yang on haunch, "peace pig" and a sheep.

 Another view of the pig, which has a flower on its other haunch:

A look at the flowers the skunk and bunny are holding.  These were initially intended to be 'ring dishes'.

Next are two seagulls, a lobster, a whale and a shark:

Four fox figurines:

 Four sheep:

 Four crows:

Four Blanding's turtles.  This is a threatened species in Nova Scotia and the subject of habitat conservation campaigns by the Nova Scotia Nature Trust:

Four bears:

Three birds: (a chickadee, robin and bluebird)

Squirrel, deer and buffalo:

Four goats (three billy and one nanny), four chickens and a rooster.  When sculpting the chickens I thought if they were an Ikea item I would name them "Bok Bok" after the sounds real chickens make.

 And finally a couple of Easter chicks and Thanksgiving turkeys.

That's it!  Three cheers for everyone supporting the buy local movement this holiday season!

Now Available At The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia Shop, December 12th, 2016

Here are pics of new pieces dropped off at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia shop in downtown Halifax, this past Saturday.  It is nice to see the new shop filling back up with beautiful locally made things!

a white tailed deer fawn, two owls and a moose

A small skulk of fox figurines

two black bears and a polar bear

New ornaments, handsculpted and relatively flat but have a bit of relief to them. The backs are unglazed so that they can be personalized with a marker, or used as gift tags.   In addition to the ornaments pictured here there was a dove, whale and dolphin.

Pig and rat

Puffin bowl

Robin, crow and blue jay

Seagull with two puffins

Wolf with two sheep figurines and a larger sheep sculpture

Glad to finally have some new work for the shop! In addition to these pieces is a black bear bowl and beaver bowl from a previous firing.

Now Available at Jenny Jib, November 5th 2015

Here are pics of work from this latest firing that I dropped off at Jenny Jib in Lunenburg yesterday.

First up is the American Thanksgiving Turkey.   

This is the most ambitious clay piece I've ever made, it took quite awhile to do and I'm surprised it didn't crack!  Like all my functional pieces it is cone 6 stoneware and foodsafe - though I wouldn't chance putting this particular piece in a dishwasher or microwave.

The back comes off such that it can be used as two serving vessels and/or maybe a good hiding place for something precious:  

Here is its backside:

 

Next up some Whaleware - completely inspired by Lunenburg and Jenny's shop.  Four new mugs:

A bowl with 2 relief carved humpack whales and two peace signs, really happy with how this turned out:

And a sperm whale plate that is wired to hang on the wall when not in use.   

 


Here's a big moose bowl:

And a few figurines.  First a seagull and two walruses:

Next is a shepherd dog:

A sheep for the dog to herd:

And a skulk of foxes scheming to heist the sheep from the shepherd dog:

A Polar bear, who could probably eat all the other figurines, and a baby bear:

I also dropped off a few other figurines that were at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia shop, which is temporarily shut while Pavia opens a new cafe (yum!) where the shop was, and the shop moves across the hall.

Hunting season buddies: a buffalo, bighorn sheep and white tailed deer stag

Earthenware birds!  A puffin, kingfisher and mallard  

And a few more figurines, 2 sheep a bear and a squirrel.

  
Along with these pieces I dropped off 33 new ornaments from this latest firing.  Out of respect and gratitude for all veterans I'll wait until later to post ornament pics - Jenny Jib honours Remembrance Day and doesn't start decorating for the holidays until later in the month.  

Works In Progress Aug 9, 2015, whale mugs, relief carved vases, lobsters and more

At long last here are some progress pics of work about to go into the kiln.  For a change I thought I'd photograph things in progress after I was done underglazing.  Underglazing can be as time consuming as carving I've realized!

All of the pieces in these pics are still "greenware", not yet fired.  As soon as it stops pouring rain I'll be able to start shuttling things across the yard to the kiln shed for the bisque firing.  Then, all the pieces will get dunked into studio glazes and fired again (all the pieces in this firing are cone 6 stoneware).  The super painterly pieces here will get a clear glaze, the animal bowls will be glazed various colours.  I took lots of photos for my own reference as I'm not sure how everything will turn out - we'll see!

A lot of these pieces will be going to the supremely wonderful Jenny Jib shop in the beautiful town of Lunenburg.  As always these are all hand sculpted, I don't use any types of molds.

First up, who doesn't need a butter dish with a lobster on it?  Jenny always has cool Jonathan Adler pieces in her shop and this piece came out of having fun asking myself "What would Jonathan Adler do if he was designing things especially for Jenny Jib?".  Probably not this.  But it was fun to pretend.  These are all different views of the same butter dish, which is made from slabs for a change - usually all my sculptural-functional pieces start on the wheel.

 Next up, Whale Mugs! I'm excited about these, there are two humpbacks, a fin whale and a sperm whale

Next, what visitor to Lunenburg hasn't wished they had a mug with the Bluenose II on it, and a lobster for a handle?  There's just one mug and 3 pics of it:

 Making a mug with the Peggy's Cove Lighthouse on the front and a lobster for a handle also seemed like a good idea:

Next up are two largish flounder platters that will get dunked in studio glazes, much faster than painting underglazes.  I left my feet in the pic for scale.  They'll be foodsafe, dishwasher safe, and also able to hang on the wall.

When I started art school I loved making relief carved vases.  I haven't tried any for awhile as the ones I've made in the past were red clay with black stain.  Adding colour makes things more tricky, so we'll see how these turn out.  First here's one with a fox on one side and a heron on the other.  

This next vase is larger, with a rabbit on one side, an owl with mousie on the other, and birch tree trunks all around.  Back when I started it fiddleheads were just coming out...

Here's a kraken mug:

 And a fox mug:

A rabbit bowl:

Two black bear bowls:

Moose bowl:

Chicken bowl:

Skunk bowl:

A flock of six sheep bowls which will be glazed white with black legs and heads (Suffolk Sheep)

And finally a batch of figurines.  My figurines started getting bigger, more time consuming and the prices started creeping up, so these ones are smaller than most of the ones in my last firings.