Who was that masked bowl?
Feb. 24th, 2018 07:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
offcntrI was talking to one of Denise's friends at last week's book arts meeting (Denise was halfway through cataract surgery, so I got to drive). Turns out Elizabeth is taking throwing classes at Lane Community College, and enjoying it greatly, after a fairly shaky start. We commiserated about the challenges of learning to center (it took me the better part of a semester-and-a-half), talked about our favorite forms, and I showed her a few pics of my work on the phone.
I think we have one of your bowls, she said. It has a raccoon on it. We bought it for my father-in-law, who used to feed them in his yard.
I allow as how it might very well be mine, though might also have been by Gordon Ward, another potter who used to make painted-animal pots in Eugene in the eighties and nineties. She says they inherited it when he died, and offers to send me a photo.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present the heirloom Off Center Raccoon Bowl. It's definitely one of mine, though old. The rim isn't quite in my oldest version--it has a spiral cut into it, but it doesn't have the radial marks I added later. And the raccoon is posed completely differently than its modern counterpart. I think it's actually inspired by a quick watercolor sketch I did of raccoons in our carport (they used to come in after dark to clean up the spilled kibble left by the outdoor cats). Later pattern evolved from photos I took of the self-same bandits.
I think we have one of your bowls, she said. It has a raccoon on it. We bought it for my father-in-law, who used to feed them in his yard.
I allow as how it might very well be mine, though might also have been by Gordon Ward, another potter who used to make painted-animal pots in Eugene in the eighties and nineties. She says they inherited it when he died, and offers to send me a photo.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present the heirloom Off Center Raccoon Bowl. It's definitely one of mine, though old. The rim isn't quite in my oldest version--it has a spiral cut into it, but it doesn't have the radial marks I added later. And the raccoon is posed completely differently than its modern counterpart. I think it's actually inspired by a quick watercolor sketch I did of raccoons in our carport (they used to come in after dark to clean up the spilled kibble left by the outdoor cats). Later pattern evolved from photos I took of the self-same bandits.