Easter table

 

I have a beautiful Modern Lace dinnerware set in Gray and Chartreuse ready to ship, so I shot these pics on the dining room table with my garden flower arrangements for this Easter. I love the neutral table linens with bright pops of spring blooms.

These Easter eggs are so easy! I wanted to use the natural brown of the local organic eggs. After hard boiling, each one was wrapped with different twines and cords I had on hand and then embellished with a scrapbooking paper flower with a glue dot on the back. Sometimes the simplest projects are the most successful.

 

 

Happy Easter! Happy Pesach! Welcome spring with your cool breathe and promises of renewal.

All pottery in pics can be found on LeeWolfePottery.com

Gluten free stuffed French toast

I worked 18 hours yesterday. It’s probably crazy but it doesn’t feel like a long day to me, even though I was in my studio until 2:30 am. It feels like this moment, then this moment, then this moment. On Thursday I will be able to open the kiln and see what my long day produced. There are many preordered nesting bowl sets, and one new Modern Lace platter that I glazed in gray and chartreuse that I want to see.

This morning I made a wonderful French toast with gluten free bread. It is tricky because the gluten free breads are dense and don’t absorb the eggs as readily as wheat breads. I overcame this by soaking in a thick eggy mix, and using my old cast iron griddle. I stuffed this batch with peanut butter and jelly and it is about as perfectly tasty as any breakfast could be.

Gluten Free stuffed French toast

serves 2

1.  In a small bowl, whip 2 eggs with 2 T lowfat milk. Substitute dairy free or water if lactose intolerant. Pour a depth of 1/4” into a plate with a deep lip. I used one of my salad plates, which are 7 1/2” D and worked perfectly. You want the egg mix to soak into the bottom of 1 slice of bread without touching the top.Soak 3-5 min.

2. While waiting for the bottom to soak, coat a separate slice of bread with peanut butter and jelly. Remove soaked bread and set atop the PB&J with the eggy side up. Pour 1/4” of eggy mix in the plate and use a spatula to transfer your sandwich onto the egg mix in order to soak the bottom. Cook on buttered griddle on medium high heat, approximately 3 min per side. Watch for the eggs to set, turning a golden brown.

I served mine with a pat of butter and maple syrup. Powdered sugar would be tasty, too.

I’ll be making this more often!

Thanksgivukah! Thanksgiving + Hanukkah

Thanksgiving and the first night of Hanukkah coincide for the first time in 125 years! Latkes and cranberry ginger relish, hey, what’s not to love about that? The food is easy since our Thanksgiving dinner is served early afternoon so we can waddle off for a hike afterwards. Hanukkah will be my homemade latkes, rustic applesauce, and an extra dollop of leftover cranberry relish on top, with the sour cream optional. I’ve always served gingerbread Hanukkah cookies for dessert. So the only problem left is how to set the table to morph easily from the riot of fall colors to the cool blue of Hanukkah. My solution is to go with showy white flowers, vases and candles, accent the rustic side of Thanksgiving décor, add gray as a transitional tone, and use blue for color pop. My husband made the new rustic menorah, which we will light fully for the afternoon meal, and reset for Hanukkah in the evening. Here are some style shots you can use to help style your own Thanksgivukah.

 

 

 

 

 

May we be forever grateful for the miracles of light that bless our lives with hope and abundance. Have fun setting your table! The pottery here is available at Lee Wolfe Pottery.

Happy Halloween!

I had to try these Halloween ghosts made with marshmallows from Martha Stewart!My first ones looked like neighborhood bullies had attacked a snowman with blowtorches. Eventually I made ones I like. Here are my tweaks to Martha’s ghosts. First of all, select only the roundest marshmallows. I made a bit of “glue” by microwaving a marshmallow for 10 sec, until it melted a bit and then used the sticky part to attach the parts. I also used an edible food coloring marker for the faces. Test it first because if you press too hard the ink blurs.

I also made a few place settings with my marshmallow ghosts, dried seed pods, candles, and mismatched plates and my River Journey bowls. Each setting becomes a bit comically spooky by using odd angles. My table centerpiece will be a simple arrangement of candles sitting on pods, dried leaves, plastic spiders, and white pumpkins painted with glow in the dark paint so they will glow. Here are some settings:

 

I love the one night when we let kids fly their freak flag, stay up to late, and eat too much candy. The laughter and excitement lives in our memories throughout adulthood. May the magic and freedom you felt as a child on Halloween carry your spirit aloft tonight!

Simple and natural holiday table

My favorite meals are with a few people at a time, and I like an intimate setting that lets us all shed our worries, relax, and enjoy that exquisite pleasure of being appreciated. Without taking hours of time, I make a few welcoming arrangements of candles, flowers and pottery in my foyer, living room, and dining room. I like this a lot better than an over-the-top table runner packed with tall, intimidating objects so that you can’t see across the table. These look great when you are making them, but I’ve found that they aren’t truly inviting. No one feels comfortable being the only one who can’t recognize a Rookwood vase, or comment knowledgably on Japanese floral arrangements.  I pull more precious objects out for large gatherings but for my small dinner parties, I like simple and natural. Like this:

 

 

 

Click on any pic here to see details or purchase. Hope you have some guests over soon!

Dinnerware sets

This is an old dinnerware set that I decided to revisit. I quit doing the flat bottom lace plates because they cracked so much that it got annoying.... okay, now that I think about it, an inch away from batshit crazy might be more accurate. These colors still draw me in, though. I had to reformulate a blue glaze but I think I may have it right. This one is Beach Cottage.

This is another older pattern- one of my most ordered dinnerware sets, Organic Soul. I had to remake it 3 times on my last order due to all the cracking. It was a bridal registry that just went on and on, week after week of dealing with those cracked plates. But I am trying to bring it back, too. I think that throwing a foot rim on the bottom may stop the tendency to crack along the rims. Anyway, I have a revised set of each in the kiln that will be out tomorrow.


Wish me luck!
If they come out well, i will list sample sets on my website, LeeWolfePottery

Happy Easter! Happy Pesach!

My home celebrates Passover and Easter, so my table is prepared to transition.

Passover bird plate

 

white bird plates

Blue bird plates

Wherever you are, and however you greet the spring, I hope that you set the table well!

I’ve been eating my staging props

In order to show the size of my pottery, I've been using food as staging props. I scour the produce and bakery sections for food that looks good. I've gotten quite anal about it, actually.

I know I’m starting to sound eccentric in the grocery, but when I saw these great looking radishes, I picked through every bunch to get the perfect color. It sort of annoyed another woman, but hey! I need my radishes to be bright RED, ya know?!

I’m glad that Valentine’s Day has passed. Because my diet has gotten healthier. How would you like to have this on your counter staring at you after you’ve used it for staging?

How to ride the trend wave in 2011

The global financial crisis was a game changer in how we spend our money. Before November of 2008, advertising was all about “more, newer, and different” without looking at the substance or deeper significance of what was being sold. Tips and trends were about how to ride a tsunami. That it would inevitably crash and devastate  lives was not part of the advertising conversation.

We were supposed to market our work to consumers with disposable income, who were assumedly seeking satisfaction by having more of what they had, or a newer version, or a different kind of it, or more of a newer thing… you get the picture. It was pretty shallow.

By the end of 2010, we can’t read any substantial forecast for 2011 that doesn’t mention values such as sustainability, simplicity, and the human connection. The very good news for artisans is that we no longer have to find a surfboard to ride the trend wave. This year we are the wave! The trend gurus are predicting that artisan, handmade goods made with sustainability and lasting quality by humans with a story to tell are It. All you have to do to market your work now is to show who you are and what you do. Make a cohesive statement in your presentation; your photos and shop copy, if you sell on Etsy.

Through ArtisansGalleryTeam, we are carefully selecting works from the pool of Etsy shops that are legitimately handmade in an artisan studio by those who bring individual vision and advanced skills to their works. Joining with others who are the real deal is going to make riding the wave easier.

Here are some trend reports worth noting:

I have been working in "ethical" for a long time, because I find humanitarian principles very important, and I hated big fashion's disregard for them. Having said that, I think the global economic crisis has made people re think how things are made, where they come from, and has led to an appreciation of small-scale, handcrafted, tangible, home-made etc.. The human stories behind the products are interesting, the big manufacturing model had become boring, impersonal & mechanical.

Ann McCreath from Kiko Romeo

 

 Organic Waldorf Doll By SewnNatural

IMM Cologne believes that as a result of the financial crisis people are questioning what it is they need to live well. This is leading to the emergence of simplistic, formal or severe designs that combine the basic and old with the modern and the high-tech.

Interior Trends 2011 was recently released by IMM Cologne

Natural Gemstone Cluster by ThePeachTree

Whenever we feel as consumers that the time is right for paring down, we focus on simple designs and simple, warm colors. Plain metals and eco friendly materials: wood, bone, simple and soft semi- precious stones with Earth colors and a simple palette will prevail for 2011.

Lisa Jesse (Lisa Jesse has the #1 website on Google for trend prediction)

Building a Body of Work

We fall in love first with the pure act of creation. From there we chose a medium, such as clay, paint, metalwork. The pieces we make for sale are a consequence of an inner exploration, and that’s the most fulfilling context for creation. If you follow this path, what you create is a legacy that is distinctively your own, as Jonathan Fields so aptly describes. What you get if you don’t follow this path is a frustrating, jealousy producing, creative dead end of finding objects that others have made and trying to make them. In this world there is a great deal of finger pointing and reading endless marketing tips, and seeing other creatives as competition. The most threatening people of all in this world are the ones who are successful. Frankly, it’s not a satisfying place to be, and if you are a creative person stuck in this world, get out now! Put your time and energy into building a body of work!

A body of work is a clear, recognizable  path that you are taking with your artistic exploration and creations. To build a body of work,  just pick one thing that you like to make that you can make well. Make that with one invariable quality, and several variable qualities. Your same quality might be same subject matter, size, color, or utilitarian function. For example, I made these casseroles last year:

 

 

Here are some variations:

I also took the casserole shape in this direction and developed Keepsake Boxes, which is a smaller version of my casserole form, without handles.

A body of work is a path that you forge. You end up in uncharted territory, making things that aren’t like other people’s work. You begin to respect and even like other creative people, and recognize those who have also forged their own path. The challenge now is to continue to progress, to continuously move forward.

Werner Erhard once said, “Any idiot can walk a path when shown one. But out here, there is no path. The path is made by your walking.”

That’s what I’m talking about!