new chapter

This was the year I settled on the word diversify as my guide through the months. The meaning of that for me, at it’s core, is change and expansion. And with that, throughout the year thus far I have been making small, intentional changes in my work, my studio practice, my business and my personal life. One of these changes has been the relaunch of this website and my “brand”. I am moving on from Forged & Found. It no longer represents where I am at in this creative journey. Forged & Found started as a crafting hobby and an Etsy shop that housed the goods I was making at a time in my life when I was trying to figure out “what was next”. I had just spent the previous five years owning and operating a boutique and making the difficult admission that a post 2009 recession economy had made it impossible to keep things afloat. I never planned to have F&F turn into a line of ceramics - it just happened gradually on it’s own.

I’ve spent a lot of time in the past year reflecting on what I am doing with my pottery business, how can I do things differently? better? what is working? what isn’t? what do I love about it? what brings frustration? In all of that thinking time I realized that as my business had grown over the years I felt like I was put into a defined box of what my work should or does look like (this, I believe, was a consequence of social media). Also I noticed that I rarely made time for real experimenting in my clay practice or for incorporating other mediums of art and design into my studio time. Finally, I understood that I no longer wanted to be defined by Forged & Found Pottery. It was time to use my own name to represent any and all of the work I create whether that is pottery, painting, jewelry, block printing, clothing design, or whatever inspires me.

This summer has been full of the privilege of time and travel. My husband is currently on a sabbatical of sorts after selling his business of 10 years. This has afforded us the ability to take a three part summer road trip to see friends and family, explore new towns, introduce our new pup to the ocean and take time to plan and dream. A true gift. I have come back from that experience with new ideas for work as well as new perspectives on how I want to work and live.

This weekend I am launching a small but new collection of cups based off of a chart of classic Japanese yunomi styles (see below). Yunomi is the most common type of Japanese teacup most often used for daily, informal tea drinking. In the West, the yunomi is seen more as a playful drinking vessel for anything from water to wine.

I made this collection over the course of the summer. Between each leg of our three-part road trip, we returned to Athens where I would pop back into the studio and do a firing or a glaze session. I was inspired by the Yunomi chart to not only use as a reference point but as a study on shape. Each cup was finished with a layer of slip and then decorated with a circular pattern accented with gold luster. The interiors are lined in a contrasting glaze for a pop of color.

I use the image of the circle often as it represents the moon and sun as well as time, timelessness, the infinite and the cyclic movement of life.