Glass Flower Frogs

Many of the art glass companies made flower frogs during the early 1900s to about 1950. Many designs could well be inspiration to potters. 

I remember a very large. shallow bowl made of black glass with a scalloped edge with a center area for a matching frog that was a "Very chilly nekked lady in a lake". She was about 6 inches tall and looked like this.

She did most of her standing in the attic, however--mostly due to the fact we lived in a small, conservative town.

I can remember only a few times when she stood in a grouping of daffodils, though, and I thought she was beautiful.


A lot of glass companies made simple frogs as well as sculptural pieces like this.

Some work better in glass. Especially as in this example of a green glass 'brick' form. It would be quite pleasing with the flower stems showing through the bottom.

This won't work in clay, but the form is nice. A great glaze or design on the face might be a good opportunity.

Somewhere I have seen a similar vase by Paul Gauguin.  Did you know he made many ceramic pieces? Undervalued, in my opinion

Clear glass is successful because it seems to disappear as in the next frogs. I don't know about Lalique, but I know Baccarat made some flower frog pieces.

The clear two-pieced set one sold at Christies for $250.

Tall vases with a removable frog in the top works well in clay. As a matter of fact, I made a couple of these and they were very successful.  The frog rested on a small ridge and could be removed so the vase could be used for used in another way. 

The same could be said for the next two bulbous vases. A pierced lid could be made either with the criss-cross motif or with holes in it. These two are technically rose bowls. Anything with a metal criss-cross flower holder is classified as such. The rounded shape just screams for a great, runny glaze. 

This is a unique take by Tiffany. I'm not too sure how it would look with flowers; you would surely want to let the bottom of the bowl design show.....

Flower Frogs

After a long, wet and cold winter, the trees and bushes are budding and early flowers are virtually leaping out of the ground.

This puts me in mind of the flower frogs I used to make for shows. One of those fill-the-corners-of-the-kiln things that "paid the rent".

Definitely a niche item. I wouldn't have even thought of making them if a lady hadn't described what a pansy frog was and requested I make one for her. Since she was a friend, I made her one and then tried including some at a show. They were great little sellers and fairly easy to make.

You know how it is. Every show you have someone who wants you to make something for them and usually I  take a dim view of this having been stung a couple of times stuck with a piece I had made and the buyer having evaporated.

I still have a custom made salt and pepper dispenser set designed to fit a particular stove niche......

Anyway

the flower frog request sent me off on a mission to expand my knowledge about their different shapes and history. I remember seeing them at my grandmothers' and aunt's houses. We had a few in the house I grew up in.


I have a couple of antique flower frogs I've picked up along the way.

The first is a Japanese one made to suggest lotus leaves. It is designed to sit inside another vessel and support either a grouping of flower stems for each hole or quite large stems like iris or lily plants.

Large, tall flowers and this small frog might present a problem. I have never understood why frogs are so short. This one makes more sense.

The pink example is currently on eBay for $12.00.

The other piece that was in my mother's things. For years I had no clue about what it was. It is a variation of a pansy frog.

The slots are for tiny blossoms with stems that are too weak to support themselves. They are threaded into the slots and into the water reservoir  filled from the top.

This one is a McCoy Pottery piece and can be found in antique shops.

Flower frogs might work as kiln fillers and could be successful for sales in garden shows, at nurseries or art fairs.

More about frogs in the next post.

Being Your Own Inspiration

Many times we go to workshops, seminars and conventions, listen to lectures, buy books, watch demonstrations, try our hand at new techniques and become inspired to create new works.

It's good to feed that creativity and sharpen skills,

But

Sometimes in all the flood of the new, the exciting, the dazzle, we can lose ourselves.

That's why it is a good idea to keep alive all the essence of what you and you alone can do.

Keep a good record of your work to remind yourself where you were going with a certain piece; make a note of construction, alterations, glazing and firing as well as what inspired you to make it or what your thoughts were while you were in the process.

I used to think I would make only one piece each time, but I have come to think that making two is better, at least for me.

 I also like to set the finished work in front of me and take a good look at it. I make notes about what problems I encountered, what surprises happened and what I would do if I made it again.

Those are written in the margins of my journal that I keep as I throw or construct work, through the glazing process and after firing. That way the whole history of a piece is located in one place. And I don't really care if it is messy or not. Sometimes fast is better than neat.

Inspiration can come from anywhere......

This is one of my favorite movies.

And when I finished the piece below, I named it, "Count Olaf".

I chuckle every time I look at it.
















The piece is about seven inches tall, made by slabbing out some porcelain, impressing it with pieces of styrofoam packing material, a sea shell, comb, and a palm-sized piece of car tail light picked up in a parking lot.


Really, I started with a freeform teardrop shape for the base.

For the sides, I made a pattern drawn on newspaper and cut out makes the shape for the two sides of the piece.

I join the two sides using a score tool and clay worms and coax it into a standing form. This has to be done by using a very light touch because I'm working with rather wet clay. I prefer to join these kinds of pieces while they are soft. It makes for better seams. I have to be very careful not to disturb the outside design.

I shape the spout, making it bulge at the base, roll the back over and smoothing it out.

I put the flattened ball of clay 'button' at the point where the form makes a radical change. This is really to reinforce the change of direction that stresses the clay. And it makes a very good design element.

I also manipulate the form mostly from the inside with dampened fingers, pushing it in or out to manipulate and emphasize the curves. And I lightly support the outside while I'm doing it.


The glaze is an iron glaze with a creamy rutile liner and the piece is fired at a cone 5/6 oxidation.

Eye Candy

I have a bookmark on the computer entitled "Eye Candy". It's a place where I put things I want to just look at in order to feed my artistic soul.

I used to collect beautiful books and files of images in order to do this, but electronic images are even better. Mainly because they are more vibrant, created with light and more real-world than print matter.

This painting is by Paul Hodges. He is the Artist in Residence at Highclare Castle, the film location of "Downton Abbey".

Looking at things that inspire gets the creative part of your brain whirring and you begin to daydream about making wonderful things. I don't want to lose that.

So, after this inspiration, I want to do a few colored pencil drawings of my feather collection and then a study in black and white.

Eventually, when I am able to set up my clay studio again,  I will apply what I learn from the drawings on a clay piece; maybe on a box lid or a tile.

I will also print off this image, put it into my paper "Springboards" file folder along with my drawing studies for future reference.

And the jpeg will also go into my cyber file on the computer desktop for easy access as well.

That way, I will be able to tap into the original feelings I had when I first ran into this piece,  recapture the creative thinking and take it further.

What do you look at for inspiration?

Neat-O

This urn just blew my mind.

It's made of plastic and has four plates, three bowls, and two small sauce dishes.

The whole thing masquerades as a jar.  It's so Clever!



I'd love to make one like it in clay, but I think it would be too heavy.

I love things like this.

A modification of this idea might work, though.

Eye Candy

A follow-up of the previous post, here's a website that is pure design and form.

There isn't a single thing here that I don't admire and love.

Inspiring and beautiful, the presentation of sculpture and objects is done wonderfully with the use of stands that enhance the object.


Copyright © 2008 Lamont Design Company All rights reserved.


The website design isn't bad either, by the way.

Here Today

This weekend I happened to look out the office window and saw this.

What a great inspiration for a drawing, watercolor or a cuerda seca glaze treatment.

Of course, the wind blew last night and today, it's all gone. Glad I had the camera handy.

Inspiration

I ran across this on the web the other day.

It really hit my eye.

At first glance, I thought, "Round picture frame."

It is not that, but my mind went spinning into design mode and I saw this wonderful charger with a plain center and a highly decorated curved rim.

It is a form I've done before experimentally, a large plate with a curved down rim. But I have not made one with the plain center and ornate rim.

I'm clipping this as a springboard to tack up on the wall of the studio. A reminder of the next project, perhaps.

Now the full story--

It's an antique silver Japanese incense jar. The first photo was an overhead shot showing the bottom and rim of the piece.

Not a bad form either.

On the whole, Japanese silver is underrated and under priced. Only recently has it come into it's own as valuable pieces.

Same goes for Mexican silver. The quality is high in silver content in both productions, but until the value of silver began to go up, the work had little attention except for affectionados.

Two Pitchers

More from my files:

I often wonder if pitchers are going to be a thing of the past. At one show I where I had a booth, a potter remarked to me that the younger generation hardly knows what they are.

If you think about it, we don't use pitchers nearly as much as earlier generations did.

Nearly all our liquids come in either plastic or cardboard-like boxes.

These two pitchers are literally worlds apart.

The Chinese one looks like castle walls, roof tiles, curly toed boots and heavy fur-lined coats. I find it interesting that the structure above the handle serves no purpose except decoration. The pitcher is solid. straightforward and no nonsense. I also like the idea of the lid.

The glaze is perfect for the form.

This pitcher is all elegance and practicality at the same time. It is designed to hold a lot of liquid.

The spout would certainly pour and do that generously. I'm guessing it is a large piece meant to hold water or a liquid that would be used liberally. It's primary use was probably for water.

The handle is hefty, yet very decorative. It's almost too light for the rest of the vessel. Because it is decorated in a reference to a dog head, I would guess it was made in either France or Germany, since both those countries used that motif in their handles.

The design touch of banding serves as to emphasize the wonderful curve of the pouring lip, the roundness of the body. What an elegant piece.

Charmer

Since I can't get to my studio to work, I thought I'd share a few pictures of pots I've grabbed off the web to dream over.*

This little gem comes with not much information. All the information is in what the eye can see.

It's either Japanese or made during the period of high influence from Japan and China. You can guess just by looking at it that it isn't large; it's probably very light in the hand.

It's interesting both in form and decoration. The piece probably was mold-made. It is more than likely porcelain and has an applied lid knob and handle. The triangular shape is unique.

Two things tip you off to know it's made in the East: The side-mount handle and the spout, which hearkens to saki-pot pourers.

Just look at that glaze design! Almost like someone had taken glue and layered the pot with fine brocade. And what a sensitive bounce of bluish white and dark navy. That fine white line all around the rim sets off and calls attention to the triangular shape. A sensitive design element that adds grace to the pot.

How I would love to handle this pot. To turn it over and see what the base looks like, what clay was used, to try pouring out of it. (Although you already know it would do an excellent job with nary a drip.)

What an inspiration to use for shape and decoration.

*If you have a Mac, it's easy to click on a jpeg, drag it to the desktop, let it go. It will sit there waiting to be opened or drug into another folder to be stored for later viewing. I usually re-name the file as a memory aid, or if I know who made the piece, the artist's name.

Springboards

The Springboard

This is a length of beautiful indigo batik.

I lusted after this fabric, but it was extremely expensive.

I kept the jpg.

I made a little palmetto shaped tile with a raised rim on one side. It sat around in the studio for a while. I put it in with a bisque firing, still not knowing what I would do with it.

Then

I got out some deep blue underglaze to trim some bowls.

I got a sharp pencil, printed off the jpg. Used the design as a springboard to decorate the tile.

Voila

Playing with Pattern

Please Note: The following post was written before the news of the horrible earthquake in Hati. I, like you, am watching and praying for those unfortunate people who have and are suffering from this catastrophy and doing what little I can to help.

Ah, the joys of winter. The days when shivering souls' thoughts turn to memories of tropical breezes and gently swaying palms.

Palm trees.......Living near palm trees have been intermittent part of my life through the years. Unfortunately, I cannot say I'm looking at any now, but I'm not looking at snow and ice either, so I can count myself lucky so far.

Even though at the moment I am looking at some spiky vegetation, I never tire of looking at palm trees, those tough survivors of prehistory.

You must admit they are very weird trees. I like to think of them as something more akin to a rhinoceros' horn than a bona fide tree. The long, seemingly weak trunk that insists on piling more growth on top of itself in the order of scales rather than grained wood, and topped by inefficient-looking tassel-like things that flops and windmills at every breeze. Not really leaves at all.

The invention of a mad scientist, I say. The fronds look more like some plastic material and don't seem too suitable for photosynthesis. And the tree has a most inefficient way of discarding dead fronds. Discarding big hunks of them leaving a wound where they had been attached. Or very carelessly not quite shedding the things, allowing the fronds to hang down the trunk giving shelter to who knows what kinds of vermin. Really.

Their roots are a joke. Although, I have almost never seen a palm uprooted or one that has fallen over unless it is the result of a hurricane or some other extremely powerful force. I'll give them that.

And fruits? Either strange cat-o-nine tails loaded with dates which have to be cut off or big, thumping bombs that fall so close to the trunk they develop into more competitive children that steal soil nutrients (such as they are) and finally, the sun from it's parent.

They really should be the total failures of the plant world. Yet persist, they do.

SEGWAY Alert:

Once, when we were living in the Middle East, a friend of mine woke one morning to find that the slight bump in the center of her living room floor had developed into mound caused by a palm sprout. It has slept there for years but, for some unknown reason, decided that morning (or night before) it was time to grow. "Must have been the Kool Aid the kids spilled", she thought. She and her landlord had one devil of a time rooting the thing out--had to take all the tile out, break the cracked concrete and dig a deep hole.

In any case, I am charmed by them. Palm groves grow in graceful poses. I have drawn them, painted them, and spent hours looking at them. They are like a corps de ballet in the breeze; dancing and tossing their heads to the music of the wind. They softly rattle their fronds against each other, clasping and unclasping green fingers in the air, making hypnotic shadows on the ground revealing the secrets to weaving in their shadows for some astute ancient woman to unlock.

Clay "Riffs"

A "Riff" is a musician's variation or interpretation of a phrase or composition of music. Exploring. Expanding. Making musical expansions or comments.

A "Riff" to a comedian is taking an idea and pushing it until it spins off into something hilarious.

Steven Wright: "The other day I got my house key and car key confused; put the car key in the house lock. It started right up.

So I jumped in and drove it around the block. A cop tried to get me to pull over.

I put my head out the window and yelled: "Get outta my yard!"

That's really riffing.

"Riffing Clay" is doing the very same thing.

Well, it may not be Exactly hilarious, but you know what I mean.

I like to take a basic form and push it. Not only does it bring a new form idea into being, it gives new life to it.

Here's a basic rectangular slab-rolled baking dish that was oooched into a flowing form. (I'm sure oooched is a verb.)

Granted, I did not start with a square base--more of an old TV screen shape; oblong with rounded corners. I measured the circumference of the base with a piece of string, then cut out the side from one very long piece of slabbed clay. (only one join) I attach walls with vinegar water, slathered on with a brush, and compressed the wall base into the floor. This must be done with a very light, form-encouraging touch. Otherwise, the wall will be weakened and not stand up well.

I secure the inside wall at the base by using a clay worm, compress and round and smooth the inside join. Then I manipulate the walls. I might form a slight outward bulge at the bottom; a slight outward flare at the upper rim.

A turntable is a good thing to have here. You can work on the walls and easily check how the whole form looks as you manipulate it. I sometimes add clay to create an interest area. Whatever 'feels' like it's working. Depending on how the clay is acting, I either work while it is soft, or wait until it firms up before 'riffing' it. Every piece is different. It is very important for a potter to cultivate a light, clay-sympathetic touch that builds strength into the clay, and not weaken or overwork it.

*Note: Riffed pieces are sometimes really difficult to photograph.

Watch and feel the piece until it has begun to dance to your eye. Knowing when to stop is also very important.

Sauce bottles

The Inspiration:

A water or wine bottle, designed to be either carried or strapped to a saddle, a waist or shoulder strap.

These vessels can be found in museums. Variations can be found in displays from the Orient to the New World.

This beauty came up on eBay a few years ago.


I saw this one at the Corcoran Museum in Washington D.C. some years ago.

It is engraved rock crystal with gold or vermiel fittings and was part of a special show from the collections of the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul.

(Photo taken from a post card.)




A modification of the form can be used to serve sauce, syrup or sake.

















It's intriguing how different the same form looks when the surface treatment is changed.












































All the above were made by handbuilding.

I cut out a rather free-form bottom first, roll out a long slab of clay, then mold it around the base until I get a free-form shape. I attach the bottom to the walls--this is easy since the top of the form is very open at this point.

If I were to texture the outer walls, I would impress them first and then handle very carefully to keep the design crisp. So far, I haven't added a surface treatment after the form is 'set' except for glaze variations.

I coax out the spout walls and either let the whole thing stand on it's own or put a cylindrical form inside to keep the shape. While that is stiffening up a bit, I hand shape the spouts. Then, I rest them into U-shaped cuts at the sides and attach them, adusting the angles as I go and trimming off excess clay. I smooth all the inside areas for a good flow of liquid, then begin to shape the closure at the top.

The form lends itself well to variations and manipulation of the shape.

I'm sure I'll continue to explore this idea more--the addition of a removable lid could be added as well as modifying it to make a divided vessel for oil and vinegar; creating handle designs; etc.--lots of possibilities.






"Black Nose"