My wife surprised me with a mug that had my painting glazed onto it. I thought she had found one that a business was selling and I was concerned that someone was stealing my work and using it for profit. That wasn't the case as she sent an image over the internet to the company and they made the mug for her to give to me. You can see the original acrylic painting to the right at the top of the blog. I have made prints of this painting and do sell them once in a while. I don't think I will ever sell the original as it is a painting that I created first time out of the gate when I retired from teaching in 2008.
I have never posted about my pottery works that I have done in the past. As an art teacher one is required to demonstrate working on the wheel to teach the skill. Sometime is the past 35 years of teaching I would just selfishly make my own to keep. I do recognize that modeling being an artist is what the process of teaching is all about so I would make things through out the years.
When I was required to get more hours in order to renew my teaching license I took an art history class. I was to recreate older works of pottery using the Navajo style of pottery making. Hand built, coil method was the beginning of the process and then scraping and smoothing by hand with wooden tools. The final process was to burnish the piece by using a smooth rock, sometimes I used a spoon, to get a smooth hard finish. You can see how rustic it looks on the inside and I believe a true native American Indian art did probably smooth out the insides.
The taller piece in this photo was one I made back in the early 70's while in college. It is a miracle that I could get a good one out of the work I was doing on a treadle board driven device. The wheel was powered by kicking the wood lever back and forth. It was hard to learn centering when your body is shaking. The experienced potters probably learned to move their one leg and not the rest of their body but I could do that then very well.
We have pottery throughout our house and some stored in the basement. They are artworks and can be appreciated for that. I have a lot of special ones that I do treat that way and others are utilitarian pieces holding wooden spoons, pencils and pens and even loose pennies.
