The banks were fun, but this next piece has me close to giddy. I have admired the salt glazed pots of the Martin Brothers for a long time. Years ago, Toff and I toured the house of an eccentric Englishman (is that redundant?) who had dozens of pieces. Having seen them I liked them even more and I finally decided to take a run at making one of my own.
Just like the Martin Bros., this is a lidded jar. They made all kinds of exaggerated and grotesque animals. I don't have much of a palette to do it justice, but this might be one of several over time. I once undertook to make 100 vases shaped like fish (fodder for another blog). I doubt I could make 100 of these, but a few more might be nice.
7 comments:
Wow; I would never have expected something like this from you. Stoic, yet flighty.
Giddy is good. Love the bird jar.
What are you smoking these days, Finnegan?
hey, i dig the bird jar, quite a departure
Wow! What a surprise, and amazingly done. Now you have ME thinking.....
Hey Dan,
The Martin Bros are some of my favorite pieces. I have a catalog that was put out by David Rago about 15 years ago and it had about 100 pieces in it.
My friend Bill Schaaf, www.williamschaaf.com, makes these horse figures and he unknowingly discovered how the Martin Bros made the lids fit. What Bill does is make the body, then line the seam with Saran Wrap, then he drapes a slab of clay over the seam and pushes down so that there is a bunch of the slab inside the body. He then builds the head of the horse on top of the draped slab, which becomes the anchor of the head of the horse.
I realize that this is not a great explanation but I can post photos if what I have said is unintelligible.
John
As you might expect--I love the birds!
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