Washington Clay Association 2013 Calendar

Great Job on the 2013 WCA Calendar!

Bezalel, Chaim

Ben Levy, Yonnah

Bushnell, Judith

Buss, Mary Lynn

Chapman, Linda Collins

Conrow, Ginny

Cooper, Ann Marie

Dahl, Dirk

Daniels, Lee

Duarte, Liz

Feng, Anita

Freuen, Gina

Funderburgh, Eva

Gale, Diane

Garrity, Wanda

Gouthro, Carol

Grava, Damian

Harris, Jeanette

Holly, Lin

Lindsey, June

Lewing, Paul

Lobb, James

Lurie, Gale

Mander, Sandra

Moore, Allison

Newman, Eric

Roberts, Inge

Rodriguez, George'

Romm, Sharon

Sachar, Charan

Sauer, Steve

Schwartzkopf, Deb

Thompson, Susan

Copies will be available at Seattle Pottery Supply and at Clay Art Center in Tacoma.

P.S. My work is the black coffee pot in the upper right corner.

A Most Interesting Spout

I have this coffee pot. I've owned it for many years. It was part of a drip coffee set that has the pot on the bottom and a funnel-shaped porcelain filter holder that sits atop it. You insert a paper filter, fill it with grounds, pour hot water through the grounds and the coffee drips down into the pot. Not unusual.

But what is unique, at least to me,  is the spout on the pot. It has a very graceful shape. And the end of the spout has a groove on the underside and a small slot-like hole in it. The groove is angled with the spout shape, but the hole is level with the bottom of the pot.

Because of this design, not a drop develops on the end of the spout . Somehow, the groove and the hole causes the volume of the liquid to go back into the pot via the spout throat and not drip or cling to the end of the spout.

The pot was made in Germany and I have a feeling this design is one that has been used there, perhaps in other places in Europe, for a very long time.

I'm going to try and incorporate this design into my next teapot and see if I can get it to work.

Does anyone know the origin of this design and have any more information about it?

Silver Coffee Service, A Story

When my husband was a young junior Naval officer and we were stationed in Norfolk VA, I was asked to help at a big reception in the Officer's Club on base. The club was a neo-classical, columned building which had been a part of the 1907 Jamestown Exhibition, built on what was then Sewell's Point. Many beautiful and some extravagant buildings were built at the time prior to making it into a Naval base. The O'Club and some buildings from the Exhibition survive to this day.

The main room of the club was appropriately impressive and was set up with a large table at one end. Placed at each end of the table was a massive silver service, much like the one pictured. One end was for coffee, the other for tea. In between was a sea of white and gold-banded teacups and plates of hors d'oeuvres.

I had arrived in my Sunday-best clothes and was asked to sit at one end of the big table and man the coffee pot. And MAN is the operative word here! That puppy was heavy. I began serving coffee sitting, but being 5'2" tall meant that I had to lift that pot high enough to aim the spigot at a cup and not spill a drop. It became immediately apparent this wasn't going to work, so I stood to serve. I was very amused when the lady 'way at the other end of the table stood up also.

New pots of hot coffee were brought out from the kitchen to recharge the pot. By the time my 2 or 3 hours were up, I really felt like I had had a workout!

So let me explain about these silver services. It had been the tradition that early in the Navy's history, large, heavy tea services were part of every major ship and base's equipment for entertaining visiting dignitaries and for important social events. (The service pictured here is one from a battleship*.) They were often made special order from major silver manufacturers and double or triple plated to protect from them the corrosive sea air. While ships were deployed, many times replacement pieces or special pieces were contracted for in the place the ship was moored. For instance, several years ago I found a set of silver finger bowls with the Naval insignia impressed on the sides.

Admiral's messes also had special-order china with the Navy crest and gold banding; heavy silverware was used in the officer's mess. My children thought it was a real treat to have dinner with the officers in the mess when my husband was also standing watch for a night. They learned early how to handle so many spoons and forks. They remember it now as very special and it was.

Today's military does not separate officers from enlisted personnel for food service and the clubs serve combined ranks these days, so many of these heavy silver tea and coffee services are now either in museums, or, in the case of battleships, they have gone back to the state for which the ship was named.

*This set is from the battleship North Carolina.

Coffee Pots

Not many potters make coffee pots. Maybe it's because coffee pots are too complicated. Heat needed at the bottom, perking or dripping the water through, the grounds problem, etc.

Maybe it's because coffee is never (well, hardly ever) moved from the pot that made it.

This is an experimental pot I made just to explore the form. It would work for hot syrup just as well as for one or two cups of coffee, I suppose. Not that a coffee shaped clay piece couldn't be used for tea, mind you.

The exercise got me thinking about coffee pots in general.

Did you know that Chemex® still makes that famous glass drip pot to this day?

(www.chemexcoffeemaker.com)

They now make one without the wooden/leather collar that has a glass handle. Not the funky look, but more practical.

If you wished, I suppose it would be possible to make a pottery one, but then, there's much to be said about watching the coffee being made in glass.

What, in our collective Western minds, distinguishes a coffee pot from a tea pot? The shape.

Coffee pots are nearly always tall with a spout located at the top. Maybe this is because of the need to keep any stray grounds as far away from the liquid as possible.

The original design probably came with the beans from the Arab and African world into Europe. An Arab pot, which is invariably made of brass or other metal has a heavy bottom (for sitting down on sand) and a weighted, hinged lid.

The exception to this is the silver maker's designs which placed a long, S-curved spout on the the coffee component of a silver set. Coffee and tea being served in this manner is always brewed elsewhere and put into the pot. So there's no actual brewing going on here. There were some electric percolators that had a similar design as the silver serving set pot, but that was because we were so in love with everything electric. The design soon died when better coffee could be made in makers like the ones we use today.

Silver chocolate pots often followed the shape of coffee pots, but has the spout or handle, whichever way you want to look at it, offset chocolate offset to one side, signifying it is a chocolate pot. This would seem to be a most awkward way to serve.

During the Victorian era, Limoges and other French and European china makers, as well as Japanese makers, produced chocolate sets that were elongated with the pouring spout located at the top. Most confusing.

I would imagine cleaning congealed chocolate out of an S-shaped spout could be a bit of a drag.

The pots seemed to take on the shape of the fashionable ladies silhouette--that of the 'Gibson Girl' who lost her bustle, gained a slim waist and wore elongated, non-hooped dresses.