As the holiday season approaches, many of us start to think about how we will decorate our homes for the occasion, and one often overlooked aspect of holiday decor is our dinnerware. While we may spend a lot of time focusing on the Christmas tree and other decorative elements, the dinner table is where we will spend a significant amount of time during the holiday season, enjoying meals and spending time with loved ones.
As most would guess, we have a focus on the tableware we use during our celebrations, and we encourage you to add some non-traditional color to your holiday dining table. Here are a few reasons we'll be ditching boring plates these holidays:
1. Colorful plates can help to brighten up your table.
The holiday season can be a dark and dreary time of year, with shorter days and longer nights. Using colorful plates on your holiday table can help to brighten up the space and add some cheer to your mealtime. The vibrant colors can help to lift your mood and create a more inviting atmosphere for your guests.
2. Colorful plates can be a fun conversation starter.
When setting your holiday table, you can use non-traditional color plates to create a unique and interesting look. Different patterns and colors can be mixed and matched to create a one-of-a-kind table setting that is sure to catch the eye of your guests. This can be a fun way to spark conversation and get people talking at the dinner table.
3. Our plates look so good both filled with food and empty.
Once your guests have finished feasting they can enjoy the bold colors of your plates.
This holiday season we say don't forget to add some color to your dinner table!
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So far we have been pleasantly surprised with the studio clay: pugged clay is soft and easy to use, perfect for centering, easy on the wrists. The color is most often a toasty light brown with specs, which sometimes has swirls of light and dark. Some of our members have used it in their art production and even successfully fired it in cone 10 – that was a pleasant surprise! But it has had some drawbacks as well: some pieces have come out of firings with blisters, every once in awhile we fins bits of a sponge or towel that was missed in the mixing – oops! – and you do have to wedge it more than clay straight from the factory to ensure its evenness.
Can the studio clay be used for large pieces? Is it consistent enough for production work? How does it hold up for hand building, extruding, slabs? Well this month we will be showcasing pieces made with the Studio reclaimed clay. All month long we will be testing out different methods, techniques, firings and glazes and sharing with you the results. We have fallen in love with our studio clay – messy bits and all – and we hope you will too!
As we begin the new year we begin our new work, and we start by looking back on what we have done. Every time it feels like starting over, grabbing a fresh bag of clay sitting at the wheel and seeing where it takes us. There is some intention and concept we work on in advance, but these first two months are fluid: we see what works, what doesn't, what gives us joy to make and (honestly) what sells.
Looking back it is always fun to see what we have worked on over the past few years. 2017/18 was all about bold colors against raw clay. 2019 we had two glaze palettes: light and airy in spring and summer, jewel tone and rich in the fall. 2020 we began the work before covid, and then during stay at home orders everything changed: our summer collection was glazed at home instead of the studio which resulted in some new glazing techniques for us, and the fall/winter collection was reduced to a few shapes and glazes that we had access to during the few days we were in the studio. Now 2021 we are mostly working from home again, and it's certainly guiding how much we can make and how we make it. What will Spring and summer be for 2021? Hopefully by the end of January we will have the basic concept and target pieces figured out. Stay tuned.
]]>I have been looking forward to this for some time, and we took our time to make the proper set-up: space was disinfected, we had all been carefully quarantining, only Mel, myself, Jennifer and Alicia are meeting: we are doing a quick photo shoot of our work for this website update!
A day filled with friends and creative energy, watching a professional photographer of Jennifer’s caliber work with such a talented stylist as Alicia – except for the masks it felt like the world was as it was for a moment and we enjoyed just simply working and laughing together. I will post more about everyone’s extensive individual talent and skills, but for now, I just don’t want this day to end.
]]>Pivoting for us – just like everyone else in the world – means practicing online. The days before the Shelter in Place order, we scrambled to set up makeshift home studios. We all learned how to set up our tripods and lighting, use Zoom for our classes and meet-ups, figure out how to manage to work with clay in our kitchens, dining rooms, backyards, garages terraces, wherever someone could fit a wheel or a small work surface. After a week or two, these spaces were overcome with clay, but they offered us a sense of calm, working with our hands – as always helped settle our minds.
We’ll get to cleaning up those clay footprints later!
]]>Currently, we are working in isolation again. For many artists working in their own space is contusive to their practice – for us, it’s not. We miss our community, we miss our friends, we miss each other.
Today marks a new beginning for us, one where we are learning to adapt, finding ways to stay connected and creative through our clay practice. If you are joining us – hello and welcome!
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