ceramic seed pods Archives

On Monday, I shared a bit of my clay inspiration in a post titled Inspirational Photographs of Photographer Karl Blossfeldt.

Botanic Inspired Ceramic Work in Progress

Today, I share some of my botanic inspired ceramic work in progress – and some finished work from my last soda firing at the Colorado Potters Guild.

All of the work in progress is “green”, meaning it hasn’t been fired yet. Greenware needs to be “bone dry” before undergoing the first firing, also known as the bisque firing. At this point, if I mishandle or bump one of my fragile, bone dry pieces, it will break.

Bisque firing makes the work slightly stronger and able to withstand bumps etc. Glaze firing pieces makes ceramic work vitrified, or water tight and much stronger. Of course, being ceramic, all work will break if it’s dropped on a hard surface.

Ceramicscapes - Botanic Inspired Ceramic Work - Poppy Seed Pod Bud Vase — Ceramicscapes – Botanic Inspired Ceramic Work – Poppy Seed Pod Bud Vase

Ceramicscapes - Botanic Inspired Ceramic Work - Seed Pod Bud Vase — Ceramicscapes – Botanic Inspired Ceramic Work – Seed Pod Bud Vase

Ceramicscapes - Botanic Inspired Ceramic Work - Flower Frog — Ceramicscapes – Botanic Inspired Ceramic Work – Flower Frog

Ceramicscapes - Botanic Inspired Ceramic Work - Seed Pod Vase — Ceramicscapes – Botanic Inspired Ceramic Work – Seed Pod Vase

Ceramicscapes - Botanic Inspired Ceramic Work - Bushy Seedbox Vase — Ceramicscapes – Botanic Inspired Ceramic Work – Bushy Seedbox Vase

Ceramicscapes - Botanic Inspired Ceramic Work - Spacer Beads — Ceramicscapes – Botanic Inspired Ceramic Work – Spacer Beads

I’m having a lot of fun with these. In a sense, it reminds me of my childhood a bit. I could spend hours and hours playing by myself in a world of make believe. I would create environments or rooms using my cracked open books for my dolls. The end papers of my books made beautiful wall paper or even a forest. I developed elaborate story lines that could last for days until I decided to move onto a different activity.

Today, I’m using some of the botanic or flora photographs as inspiration. In some cases, I attempt to replicate what I see, in others, I take artistic liberty to depict a flower or seedpod. In truth, it is really hard to make the real thing better.

Other Botanic Inspired Ceramic Work

I’m also fully aware that I am not the first artist to attempt to capture seed pods or flowers in clay. Just check out my most recent Pinterest search. What I find incredible, is the range of interpretations. Each person has a unique life view and will interpret the exact same subject differently. We each have our own way of working with clay – our touch is different, our tools, our mindsets, our preferred color palette and even our firing methods. All of these inform our making and interpretations which makes ceramic art (and all art) really exciting.

Finished Botanic Inspired Ceramic Work

Ceramicscapes - Seed Pod Trio Glazed — Ceramicscapes – Seed Pod Trio Glazed

Ceramicscapes - Seed Pod Inspired Vases — Ceramicscapes – Seed Pod Inspired Vases

Why have I moved in this direction? I’m not sure, is my honest answer. I have been content to explore drawing and clay. In fact, I still am. This newest work seems to be an tangent of my sculptural explorations and my stacked ceramic totem sculptures. It’s fun and joyful which makes going to “work” in my studio a great day.

One of my goals for this work is to create functional ceramic objects that are also beautiful on their own.

Ceramicscapes Pinterest Seeds and Pods Board — Ceramicscapes’ Pinterest Seeds and Pods Board

Nature is pretty darn interesting and makes beautiful artifacts. I’ve been collecting images of plant seeds and seed pods for visual reference to use in my ceramic work. This direction is a new one for me, but one near and dear to my heart as a former landscape designer and Colorado Master Gardener. I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to translate these to clay, but decided to use the winter months to experiment and the following ceramic seed pod wall art trio is the first incarnation.

Making

Ceramicscapes - Ceramic Seed Pod Wall Art before under construction — Ceramicscapes – Ceramic Seed Pod Wall Art before under construction

Originally, I started this exploration with the intent of making ceramic garden stakes for use outdoors. Each one has a hole in the back in which I planned to attach a 3 foot long rod that could be planted in the dirt of a garden bed.

Being a bit of a pack rat, I had saved a dried lotus flower seed head that came in a flower arrangement I had received last year for future use. I think the form is interesting and provided a jumping off point to begin sculpting.

Making the ceramic seed pods was slow going for me. I’m a novice sculptor and translating the likeness of a seed pod is tricky.

In fact, I asked myself why I would even want to try? It’s not to improve upon an already interesting form, but I want to translate the essence of nature’s artifacts at a larger scale for permanence and decoration.

Decorating and Glazing

Ceramicscapes - Ceramic Seed Pod Wall Art before being bisque fired — Ceramicscapes – Ceramic Seed Pod Wall Art before being bisque fired

When I was sculpting these, I learned some (new to me) techniques that abstracted the forms in clay.

Throughout the process, I continually reminded myself that these were destined for the soda kiln at the Colorado Potters Guild. I thought about how to glaze the forms and how the soda ash would affect the surface of the ceramic seed pods.

Final Finished Ceramic Seed Pods

Ceramicscapes - Ceramic Seed Pod Wall Art Trio Glazed — Ceramicscapes – Ceramic Seed Pod Wall Art Trio Glazed

When we unloaded the kiln about a week and a half ago, my firing partners remarked that these would be really interesting as wall art. While I originally designed these as garden stakes, I have to agree. I make a lot of ceramic wall installations and would like to expand this direction and think that this is a good start.

On a technical note, the two enclosed forms on the right hand side of the photo above are rather heavy. I have some technical issues to resolve and think that working with paper clay would help lighten the sculptures.

Paperclay: Art and Practice by Rosette Gault

With that in mind, I picked up a new book on paper clay by Rosette Gault to learn a bit more about the medium. I haven’t been able to dive in, but am really excited about the possibilities!