2023 Holiday Pottery Sale

I will be holding my annual holiday sale on Saturday and Sunday, December 2-3, from 10 am to 4 pm both days. I will have mugs, bowls and cap lid jars that came out of two gas kiln firings in August and September, my first glaze firings since 2020.
I’ve also invited Audrey DeRose-Wilson to add some of her mugs to the sale. Audrey is the Audubon Florida Director of Bird Conservation and a burgeoning clay artist who incorporates her wildlife, and graphic, expertise into all of her lovely mugs.
My address is, as always, 560 NE 7th Ave, Gainesville.
We will accept cash, checks, Venmo and Square.
We look forward to seeing you at the sale!
John and Audrey

Mixed results from two summer 2023 firings

My first two glaze firings since 2020 produced some great, and less than great, results, with the problems resulting from some uninspired throwing and continued serious issues with one of my two key glazes.

The firings took place the first weeks of both August and September and were, once again, in Jennifer Dinklemeyer’s gas kiln in Alexandria, Virginia. The two kiln loads were populated with pots thrown in my new Gainesville Studio, from October 2022 to July of this year. They consisted of 14 lidded  jars, about 80 mugs of three  different styles, and 8 bowls. A dozen of the mugs and three of the jars  were the first results of my recent attempts to bring faceted forms into my family of forms.

My new Suburu Forester, purchased with just such  glaze firing safaris in mind, proved perfect for the task, comfortably accommodating me, 11 small Home Depot moving boxes, 8, two gallon buckets of glaze and enough clothes and sundries to last both weeks in Alexandria, one in Washington, DC, one in Manhattan and one in Montreal. The latter three cities were for play, not pottery.

Jennifer’s Bailey kiln underwent a fine-tuning overhaul since I last fired in it, and it performed as well as ever for both firings. The August event was the best of the two, mainly because it involved two flawless glazes, Lafeans turquoise and tea dust tenmoku. The torquoise was spectacular on five cap lids jars, while the temmoku was as dependably dynamic as ever on the bowls and several dozen white stoneware mugs, although a fair number of the mugs would have benefited from more trimming. Six more turquoise jars in the second firing were equally nice, but most everything else was compromised in some way: 45 small, squared mugs marred by a continued problematic Woo Blue glaze, and Blue-Black-glazed faceted jars and mugs suffering from over-reduction, due to poor placement in the kiln on my part.

The continued issues with Woo Blue was the most disappointing aspect of the experience, as it continued issues encountered all the way back to 2019. Thinking a different formulation of rutile — light vs dark — was the issue, I mixed a new batch of the glaze with the former, only to have it turn out a completely bizarre opaque olive green! Back to the drawing board. While these mugs cannot be corrected, the Blue-Black pieces may come to life with re-oxidation in my electric kiln.

Counterbalancing the Woo Blue issue was my successful exploiting of a serendipitous discovery made in 2020: that multi layering Lafeans turquoise might produce some lovely results, particularly on cap lid jars, which I’ve accentuated with more bulbous shoulders and more curvilinear bases.

Most of the pots from these firings will be for sale in my next sale the first weekend of December.

 

First faceted mugs in turquoise and shino

 

Tenmoku mugs

 

Forester made for kiln firing safaris

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First pots emerging from new Gainesville studio

Two plus years after returning to Gainesville’s Duckpond neighborhood, pots are finally emerging from my new home studio.

The studio was work-ready as far back as August of last year, but for reasons I didn’t understand, I couldn’t get myself on the wheel.  Initially, I blamed it on the space’s lack of windows, beyond the new mini-blind French doors. Eventually, I realized it was all about not wanting to christen the new studio with old forms.

Looking for inspiration, I spent a few weeks perusing some old books, including several of the the 500 pots series, and Kevin Hluch’s The Art of Contemporary Ameircan Pottery, which I still think is the best multi-form, well-illustrated pottery book around. But, no spark.

Then, somewhat magically, at Thanksgiving dinner at a good friend’s house, I spotted a very old pot of mine that I had gifted him some two decades earlier. It represented a lazy, almost comical attempt on my part to reproduce a faceted jar that I had seen demoed in a workshop, in the very early 2000s. Ding!!!!! I was on my wheel the next day, with clay on the wheel and a modified wire cheese slicer in hand. After a ton of failed attempts, some  keepers finally emerged.

I’m still struggling with the lids for these jars, which I want to echo the rhythms of the bodies, and I still haven’t solved how to get excess clay out of the bases of similarly faceted mugs. But, those are fun challenges that didn’t prevent me from having a satisfying number of both faceted jars and mugs in a bisque fire last week, the first in my Gainesville studio, and the first anywhere in 3 years.

These pots, and more, are destined for a couple of glaze fires in the Dinkelmeyer family gas kiln in Alexandria, VA this summer.

All told, it’s satisfying having this facet of my Gainesville life now percolating nicely.

2022 Holiday Pottery Sale

I’ll be selling my pottery on Saturday and Sunday, December 3-4, at my home, 560 NE 7th Av. Sale hours will be 10-4 on Saturday and 1-4 on Sunday.

The sale will include two mug styles, the likes of which you may have encountered at Vine Bakery. I’ll also have grain/soup bowls, serving bowls, and cap lid jars, each in various glaze schemes.

After to a two-year pottery hiatus — due to the two years it took to get a studio in shape after my move back to Gainesville — my offerings won’t be as robust as I’d like, both in terms of quantity or (my) A+ quality. But, hopefully, you’ll find something you like, something someone else might like, or just familiarize yourself with my work, for future reference.

I’ll be able to accept cash, checks, Venmo or credit card (Square with 1.25% fee).

I hope to see you here.

John

PS – If you got here via the Duckpond Neighborhood Newsletter ad, thanks for getting your magnifying glass out to read the web address!

Covered jar in national Shino show

A tall covered jar of mine is currently on display in a show called Inspired by Malcolm: A Passion for Shino, at the Sandy Spring Museum,  15 miles north of Washington, DC. The exhibition is dedicated to the Japanese glaze Shino in general, a specific type of Shino glazing and firing technique, and the potter who discovered it.

The exhibition honors the memory of Malcolm Davis, a Washington, DC-based minister-turned-potter who developed and perfected a type of Shino glaze (and glaze firing) called carbon-trap Shino. It’s known for dramatic interplays between cream, orange/red and black colors on mainly porcelain ware, with the black color produced when carbon is “trapped” in certain areas of the glaze.

My entry in the show, glazed with Gold Shino, was thrown and fired during a month-long workshop at Alfred University, in Alfred, New York, in 2015. Given that the workshop presented me with new surroundings, new wheel, new clay, a new glaze, and gas kilns fired in rushed circumstances by graduate assistants, I felt really good about getting this pot out of the workshop. Thanks to Sandy Spring Museum, and show curator Matt Hylek, for including my pot in the show.

The exhibition is scheduled to run until September 5, 2021.

 

 

Rescheduled Mugs for a (Senate) Majority/Turn Georgia Red Clay Blue Fundraiser

The makeup for Saturday’s rained out mug fundraiser for Georgia’s Democratic senate candidates has been partially finalized, as follows.

I will have my mugs available at my house — 560 NE 7th Av — by appointment, between now and next Saturday, at which point I will make my remaining mugs available at an Art Alley event, described below.

 
If you wish to see my mugs, please call or text me at 202-257-9859. I will be at or near home for the next 10 days. Prior to your arrival, I will have a dozen or so representative mugs — and hand sanitizer — on an outside table.
 
The $25 suggested donation will still pertain. I will accept cash (exact change), checks, Venmo and credit cards (Square). I will donate 100% of the proceeds to the two candidates, minus Square’s service charges.

Art Alley Studio will hold a combination fundraiser/sale on Saturday, Dec. 5 in the fenced patio behind the studio, at  717 NW 1st St. The event will include a table with fundraising mugs.

As of this writing, Studio TM Ceramics had not said if or how they will continue with their fundraiser participation.

For more information, contact:

Sara Truman (Studio TM Ceramics), @ sbtruman@gmail.com

Allison LeBaron (Art Alley Studio) @ ArtAlley717@gmail.com

Sara Truman, Studio TM Ceramics

 

Sara Truman, Studio TM Ceramics

Allison LeBaron, Art Alley Studio

Allison LeBaron, Art Alley Studio

John Snyder

John Snyder

 

 

First Seylou bowls delivered

After about a year of work, on an off, working on form and glaze, I finally delivered 8 grain bowls and 16 soup bowls to Seylou & Mill, in DC’s Shaw neighborhood.

I approached Seylou co-owner Jessica Azeez about 11 months ago, to see if she were interested in engaging in the kind of relationship I have with Gainesville, Fl’s Vine Sourdough Bakery: I supply Vine co-owner Teresa Zokovitch with mugs for customer use in their cafe, and Teresa allows me to periodically sell my mugs at Vine.

Although Jessica did not need mugs, she did want small bowls for soup and largish ones for grain bowls, both of which she intended to introduce on her menu in spring of this year.

Of course, the Coronavirus had other ideas about spring menus and much else, but I kept working away on the bowls. After two prototype phases — with Leach White glaze over Laguna Dark Brown clay — and a couple of test firings in the District Clay Center kiln, I finally got two sets that I am very pleased with.

Grain bowls rear, soup bowls fore

Jessica, a very new mother, was also pleased with the bowls, which arrived at a major juncture for both of us: the birth of her first child and the cusp of my move from the DMV back to Florida. Ultimately, though, we agreed that we will adopt a relationship that mirrors what I’ve had with Vine for the last 5 years: I’ll continue to provide Jessica and Seylou with pots, and I’ll do mugs sales at Seylou during periodic visits to my old stomping ground. Baby Nia seems very content with that arrangement!

Jessica and Nia commune with a soup bowl

Five mugs accepted for Cup: The Intimate Object XVI show

Five of my mugs have been accepted for the Cup: The Intimate Object XVI exhibition at Charlie Cummings Gallery, October 2-30, 2020. Five of my mugs were accepted for the same annual show in 2015. The five 2020 mugs are stacked below.

Jar accepted for regional Shino show

A tall covered jar of mine has been accepted for inclusion in the Inspired by Malcolm: A Passion for Shino exhibition, scheduled for June 10 – September 5, 2021, at the Sandy Spring Museum, Sandy Spring, MD.

The exhibition honors the memory of Malcolm Davis, a Washington, DC-based minister-turned-potter who developed and perfected a type of Shino glaze (and glaze firing) that is known for dramatic interplays between cream, orange/red and black effects on mainly porcelain ware.

My entry in the show was thrown and fired during a month-long workshop at Alfred University, in Alfred, New York, in 2015. Given that the workshop presented me with new surroundings, a different wheel, different clay, new glazes, and gas kilns fired in rushed circumstances by graduate assistants, I felt really good about getting this pot out of the workshop.

The show was originally scheduled for this summer, but fell victim to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Spring 2020 mug sale @ Vine

I’ll be selling mugs at Vine again, from Feb 19 to March 3. Instead of specifying specific days and time periods, I’ll be available to interested customers “on demand”: via phone or text, we’ll agree on a time to meet at Vine to view my mugs.

I’ll be selling various styles of mugs, with an emphasis on my new altered Temodust style.

Pricing will range from $22 to $18 for non-students and $20 to $16 for students. This year, I will be adding a $.50 per-transaction surcharge for credit cards sales.

Altered, Temodust mugs