... I give to you...
... nine freckled faces...
... eight lockdown locks...
... seven irregular choices...
... six movie dresses...
... five gold rings!..
... four sassy cats...
... three ballpoint pens...
... two in/appropriate characters...
... a little souvenir.
The Great Pottery Throw Down is returning to the television on Sunday the 10th of January, and I am really looking forward to it.
So there's only one other reason to base Day 9 on ceramics, and that's because I love them, and since becoming somewhat of a crazy plant lady, I'm always on the hunt for pretty, quirky and unique pots to rehome my plants, or at least to lust over while they stay stubbornly small or keel over.
I said I was a crazy plant lady. I didn't say I was particularly successful at keeping them.
Ceramic Sense || Hanging Planter Maya on Swing
As kids, a lot of us would have made grass/chia/cress heads at school or home, out of pair of our mums old tights, or even eggshells, which we'd stuff with soil, pop in some seeds, draw a face on and wait for to sprout hair. Creating our own little characters.
I think the last time I made one of these was actually in uni after getting nostalgic with some of the people in my class A bag of grass seed had appeared as part of one of the girls projects and grass heads were inevitably made. in the end I brought some home and my little sister and I made two grass heads, and for the summer Juan and Steve lived on the deck at my parents house.
But Abby Ozaltug (Ceramic Sense) of Burlington, Ontario, like many other ceramicists has taken these childhood novelties and turned them into something humorous, cute and practical.
Handmade from sheets of speckled stoneware clay and then before firing, Ozaltug dips her happy little characters in a white satin glaze which leaves behind a similarly speckled surface.
It's then up to you to create your own character by what kind of plant to add as their hair.
Want.
Link || Ceramic Sense || Hanging Planter Maya on Swing
Within this post you may start to notice a trend in what kind of ceramics and in particular what kind of planters I like. And yes, amongst the colourfully glazed pots, stoneware and glass containers, I really like ones with cute faces. Maybe it's juvenile, but I think of it as whimsical, and given I have a cactus called Barry, I see nothing wrong with a little bit of juvenile novelty when it's as beautifully achieved as by the ceramicists I've put on this list.
Fellow Ceramics creator Chelsea Wilkins of Saint Louis, Missouri creates planters, pots and mugs which are designed specifically to make you smile.
Each piece is hand thrown by Wilkin's assistant and best friend Malaika, then Wilkins will trim them, add the whimsical features to the face and glaze them before adding 22k gold overglaze to certain embellishments, because it's she can't resist that little bit of bling.
Her characters are hard to resist too. They're simple, yet quirky and cartoonish, but not in a way that makes them look cheap or mass produced. Which isn't to knock mass produced ceramics, a lot are beautiful, but while the plant pots I own with faces already are incredibly cute, but their transferred on faces don't have as much personality as one that's painted on by hand.
That said, I'm the girl who draws faces on the clingfilm covered bowls (this is Colonel Custard, guess what he's covering) and puts googly eyes on inanimate objects...
... my headphones also have googly eyes.
I'm not ashamed, just weird AF.
Nicky Edmunds Ceramics || Large Face Pot Planter with Green Pattered Jumpers
This is the last ceramic with a face, and it's one of my favourites, ironically because you can barely see the little face and he's wearing a jumper.
Designed by Nicky Edmunds, each of her planters is hand thrown at her Dartmoor based studio, in stoneware clay. Once each of the base planter cups are made on the wheel, Edmunds attaches the legs, imprints the texture which will denote the jumper her characterful little planters are wearing and carves their facial features into the surface before bisque firing. After this phase, which removes water from the clay, fuse it together setting the shape and forming a firm porous surface perfect for accepting the colourful glazes that help further define the jumper section of the planter.
After glazing the planters are given their final fire and turns them into a strong useable pieces of ceramic with personality.
Even if these didn't have the faces, this is exactly the kind of pot I'd buy - as are others of the designers outwith this range. I love the finish, the surface texture of the jumper and the translucent colours that Edmunds uses, and sitting on your shelf, someone might not instantly notice the little face, I actually this is nice. This is definitely the most grownup take on the grass head theme of the three.
Link || Nicky Edmunds Ceramics || Large Face Pot Planter with Green Pattered Jumpers
Moving away from planters with character, and moving on to the work of North London based Florian Gadsby.
It's probably quite well documented in past blog posts that I love ceramics, and I love objects that stack inside one another or fit together within a dish or tray. So this collection of artists tools, which is so simple in shape and has this subtle grey, green and blue colour story in the way Gadsby has glazed this, as well as its practicality in the way of luxe art supply storage is really attractive to me.
Even the detail of having a cut out for a painter to rest their brush out of the water, keeping its bristles from deforming, or a little rest for your calligraphy pen so you don't stain your paper or work surface, make it functional is such a simple but effective way.
The designer has created a collection of ceramics which would look beautiful sitting on your desk and be really function, if you could actually bring yourself to use it.
Link || Florian Gadsby || Website || Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Pinterest || YouTube || Vimeo || Tik Tok
Link || Florian Gadsby Collection of Tools via Pinterest
Freckled Pottery || Small Planter in Honey
There's obviously another couple of unforeseen theme among the ceramics I've picked, and that's speckled, freckled glazes and gold accents.
This particular planter is created by Harper Jensen in North Texas, and her brand is called Freckled Pottery, one would assume for the speckled glaze that is present in a large portion of her ceramics.
Jensen's small tumblers are thrown on the wheel with speckled clay then glazed in white with multiple accent colours, before being hand painted with 22k gold once the pieces have had their final firing. Which leaves you with these beautiful objects.
I want pretty much everything on her website. It's probably lucky they don't to the UK!
Vessel with Gills is a piece of sculptural ceramic created by Michele Bianco, who is based in Inverness, Scotland.
The Scottish landscape around the area she lives and the shapes, textures and forms which exist there is a large source of inspiration to Bianco. Whether it's interweaving branches of trees when they're stripped of their leaves in the winter, the geometry of the rocks which were formed over thousands of years as glaciers creeped over Scotland, carving out its landscape or simply the structural forms of the flora that now lives there, the Scottish landscape is always present in her work.
Using techniques including pinching, coiling and slab building to form her pieces, they are then hand carved, biscuit fire and glazed before their final firing. And unlike a lot of the ceramicists on this list, Bianco fully embraces the rough, stone like finish of the unglazed stoneware, and it's actually this texture that is particularly intriguing, the stoneware clay almost looking more like pitted concrete than ceramic. However, paired with the vivid jade green, with which she glazes the internal surfaces of her sculpture, the concrete grey of the stoneware is definitely representative of the eroded Inverness-shire rocks and pools of Scottish water.
I don't remember where I found her, but over the last couple of months I've really enjoyed Bianco's ceramics appearing in my Instagram feed.
Willovane
Erica & Gregory Tuomi, Eastern North Carolina
I feel a little bit exposed, it's very obvious that when it comes to ceramics, in particular crockery, I have a type and that's freckled and half exposed.
The contrast between unglazed and glazed portions of mugs such as this one by Willowvane is just too attractive and tempting to me.
The North Eastern Carolina based ceramics studio was established by Erica Tuomi in 2016, and along with her husband Gregory, they create small batch, high quality ceramics.
The mugs Willowvane creates are a simple and elegant shape, but the way they use glazes makes them special. Whether they're monochrome, abstract or the sprinkle effect, the crisp line between the glazed and unglazed surfaces make them look incredibly precise.
And as always, I'm a sucker for the combination of textures.
madebymanos || Metal Foliage Nest with Micro English Bone China Bowl
Seven ceramicists down and this is the first foray into fine bone china rather than stoneware.
And it's fitting that this come from this particular designer because I was gifted one of his teeny tiny bowls by my sisters, and it is genuinely the finest, most delicate and fragile looking object I think I own. And it's beautiful.
Working in this incredibly thin and translucent medium Manos Kalamenios's tiny ceramics are something special, and while he often sells them alone, he also pairs them with upcycled acid etched metal foliage as a place for the bowl to sit.
The reason I chose to show Kalamenios ceramics with the foliage rather than just the bowl I own (which looks like the gold edged one above, but with a sooty black edge) was because of how reminiscent it was to designer Tord Boontje's Garland series:
I honestly don't know if this is intentional or not, perhaps as the metalwork is upcycled, perhaps the pieces are from one of Boontje's own Garland Lamps which are acid etched stainless steel, are identical in design and since they have been available since 2002 at a very reasonable £45 (yes, I've always been tempted), it's theoretically possible that one could be upcycled.
Or perhaps not. However since I've been in awe of the Boontje's Garland series for a literal decade, I like the idea that another designer could translate it into something new, and the contrast between the incredibly precise acid etched floral and the slightly ragged edge of the fragile bone china vessel that Kalamenios has created is very pleasing.
Link || madebymanos || Metal Foliage Nest with Micro English Bone China Bowl (Sold)
Link || Tord Boontje || Garland Series
Tramai Ceramics || Flying Bat Hanging Planter (Sold)
To end I couldn't resist going back to a ceramic plant holder with a face.
This Flying Bat hanging planter by Marina Curci (Tramai Ceramics) has flown in via Etsy from Undine, Italy and was something I saw and instantly had to send to my little sister at some point during 2020 because I knew she would love it.
Made of Italian white clay, Curci specialises in cute animal shaped ceramics, including possibly something cuter than a flying bat planter:
Tramai Ceramics || Bunny Face Ceramic Palette and Brush Rest
It's a bunny shaped watercolour dish with a lid and includes little bunny brush rests!
Do I paint in watercolours? No. Do I need a watercolour dish? No. Do I want one? Yes.
The greatest use I ever found for my old mass produced ceramic paint palette was using it to sort things on my jewellery bench. It was brilliant for holding solder pallions of different types, wire cut for earring posts, jump rings and generally all those little findings I needed easy access too while soldering because didn't want hundreds of little containers everywhere. Downside, no lids so everything was always covered in dust and rouge.
See I quite clearly need a bunny palette just to keep my solder pallions tidy.
It's an organisational necessity.
Link || Tramai Ceramics || Flying Bat Hanging Planter (Sold)
Link || Tramai Ceramics || Bunny Face Ceramic Palette and Brush Rest
I love ceramics. I would have loved to have tried it at university, but unfortunately the department was disbanded before I got there. And there's something about pottery that is wonderful.
We all need ceramics, we all have our favourite mug or that little ceramic ornament that we've had forever and there's a warmth to a piece of ceramic that in my opinion comes from the human contact that each piece gets. At each step of the way someone has handled that object and put their time, love and creativity into it, and when you choose that piece to bring into your home, you've validated all of that energy they've put into it.
Yes, we all end up with something someone gave us that we don't care for, or the every day mugs we pick up over the years. We keep them because even if we don't like them, they've ended up with us and there's some degree of sentimentality there.
Now, obviously as if on schedule, the 12 Days is running late, and by the time I get this up it will be Sunday (it is already), which means go watch The Great Pottery Throw Down this evening and I'll try not to fall asleep, because by that point my body will be trying to make up for my not already being asleep, like I should be.
Especially when I've got about three hours (if I'm lucky) before I get Charlied.
Happy New Year & Merry Christmas! Day ten tomorrow...
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Listening: Assume Form - James Blake
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