Forty Years of Zen

new flower bowls, available soon on Lee Wolfe Pottery

I have practiced Zen meditation for 40 years. Perhaps I have been practicing longer, as I recall days as a child watching leaves float on a stream and letting my mind float out of myself into the flow of fresh water, and letting an entire summer day pass in this serene mental vacancy.

Quite paradoxically, I am prone to ranting and swearing over a news story, an opinion I don't like, or how the type is getting smaller I SWEAR IT IS! on every single publication the older I get.

I like to think that the real me is the Zen-ified one, and that the angry raving person is just a reasonable reaction to all those freaking idiots who haven't learned to keep their mouth shut!...but essentially, I feel very at home in myself when I'm raving, and sometimes I even enjoy it, especially with other people who like to get pissed off and make snarky remarks while we are drinking their good wine.

I thought, many years ago, that the anger would leave me entirely one day and I would be left with only perfectly loving feelings and a desire to serve humanity. This has not occurred, so far. Lately, I notice a kind of paradox in everyone. The people I know who are the absolute smartest in some ways are appallingly dumb in others. The kindest people can be mean to themselves.

In case you were wondering, this hasn't the slightest thing to do with flower bowls. These are just the empty vessels my hands shaped while I was thinking about all this.

Works in Progress

My work is not made as one might bake a cake, from start to finish. I work in cycles. One day pieces are thrown on the wheel, the next day trimmed and embellished. Another day is spent hand building plates, small bowls, and sculptures. It takes an entire day to glaze for a kiln firing. 

Last night I loaded the kiln with noodle bowls, flower bowls, dinnerware, small bird and owl sculpted bowls. As these fire, the pots for the following week are set atop, to dry in the radiant heat. 

You can see that next week's kiln firing will have penguin wedding cake toppers, owl soap dishes, birds nest casseroles, pea pod casseroles, and Urban Rustic bowls. You will be able to see most of these in LeeWolfePottery.com. 

Why not on Etsy, you might ask. Well, Etsy has been redefining "handmade" lately. It now means 'anything someone claims to make with their hands, or somebody's hands, even if the individual handmade artisan is also a wholesale importer and distributor of things that are identical to that which one is handmaking. Or having other people handmake.' This blog explains it all, if you  haven't been enjoying the latest debacle.

Artisan Food, Artisan Pottery

I've been working on texture in clay, if you can even call that "working"; it consists of pressing, poking, and dragging things into the clay to see what happens. I've also refined how to roll clay into a circular shape so that the edges are the natural, untouched texture made by the process. they are not cut into shape. This is my first nesting bowl set made in this manner. You can find it on my website here.

I've also been studying a bit of food styling. Here is a simple shot, using some melon balls to show scale in my nesting bowl set. My props are beginning to tell a story about my bowls. The gray placemat was made by stamping onto fabric, a technique similar to my textured clay. the melon balls visually articulate the intention of my Urban Rustic series, which is to showcase wholesome, artisan food, particularly fresh fruits and vegetables.

My new frontier is to integrate my love of food with the styling of my pottery. My ceramic work is shaped in part by my own needs as a home cook and hostess. Here is a recipe I use all summer long. You can use the syrup sparingly for a light fruit salad or lavishly for a very tasty dessert. It is ultra-simple. Everyone wants seconds and the recipe, too!

Melon Balls in Grand Marnier sauce

3 cups- cantaloupe or mixed melons (watermelon is great in this), balled or cut into cubes

sauce:
1/2 cup orange juice
sugar to taste (4-5 T approx)
1/4 cup Grand Marnier liqueur

whisk sugar into orange juice. You will need a little less or more depending on how sweet the juice is. Fresh squeezed orange juice needs a bit less.Then add the Grand Marnier.

Pour sauce over fruit and allow to marinate 20 minutes- 1 hour before serving.

Savor!

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!

by believing passionately

What drives me in pottery, after all these years, is not to give birth to stuff that merely decorates. I believe that if you are decorating, you are already dead. The places where we dwell, the room we awake into, the table we set are not reflections of who we are. These are the molds that shape who we are. They create us, and we are reflections of what surrounds us.

When I create pottery for the table, it is with the intention to nourish the soul, to open interesting discussions, to leave imprints of wild and organic shapes in the memories of those who gather.

In learning to style my photos I am reading techniques so that I might bring the possibility of beautiful, wild, organic living. The regimented geometry of where things must be placed is stifling. I love creating flow and movement and pushing the boundaries. Technically, I am still pretty basic. This will improve over time.

Pottery displayed available here
Do you believe passionately in something that still does not exist?

Cake Stand –works in progress

Here is my first prototype for a woodland cake stand. This project began when a fellow foodie asked if I would make  this woodland planter as a base for a cake stand:

Cake stands are notoriously difficult and temperamental pieces but I just have to try it.

CAUTION: This is not a DIY post. This is a copyright protected original design in progress. Do NOT try this yourself. If you do, or pin it to a DIY board on Pinterest, your left eyeball will ooze green puss and black hairs will emerge from both nostrils. Don’t say you were not warned.

Here are my small prototypes:

The bases were hand built hollow sculptures and the tops were thrown on a wheel.

A coil of clay was added to the base and thrown on the wheel so that the top is perfectly level. Tree branch stumps were added.

The top was joined to the bottom, with slip between. Coils reinforce the joint.

Of these three small scale works, I like the flat top without the skirt the best. I chose this one for my large prototype, but also made 2 more in case this design cracks or warps in the firing. I may have to repeat this design process 2-10 more times if I want a cake stand that I can reliably produce as a small scale production piece. Additionally, the glaze I intend to use may need to be reformulated to work in these varied surfaces.

I have weeks and sometimes years of design hours in most of my work, and that is before I begin messing around with the styling, description, and market testing.

Why would an artisan such as myself, in the middle of Wedding Season with orders on hold, bother to create something new? Why would I not just do what I already know, make what will effortlessly sell?

Sarah-Lambert Cook gave her reasons in this post, which started me thinking about why the idea of a woodland cake stand displaced my love of abundant cash, and trust me, I do love that, too. There is something about having what I see in my mind’s eye emerge into a tangible thing that gives me great joy. So I guess, essentially, I do it for the fun.