contact us

Drop us a line!

Use the form on the right or email dowdhousestudios@gmail.com


Prairie Grove, AR, 72753
USA

JDowd_SucculentPots.jpg

Journal

News from Dowd House Studios: places to find our pottery, exhibitions, classes & workshops, new forms and exciting projects.

Filtering by Tag: studio life

Studio Update

Jenny Dowd

A lot has happened in the past few months! Here are the highlights…

We got a new electric kiln! It’s big, heavy, and awkward, so getting it off of Sam’s truck was an undertaking. We moved it into the studio using Ancient Egyptian engineering - rolling the kiln and pallet on scrap metal rollers. This was actually pretty fun and of course we took a few minutes to Walk Like an Egyptian and to sing that song too…

Still need to hook it up, but the kiln is now in its new home with the other kilns (they all need names.) The space is a bit unsettled for the moment, but everything will find a place soon.

Speaking of finding a place, we’ve been in need of shelving to keep our drying or ready to be fired pottery. Sam welded us a cart…

Up next, this is probably the most important (or at this point, luxurious) item… a studio sink! Complete with clay trap and on-demand water heater. I promise it will never be this clean again. Ever.

Or maybe this is the most important? A tiny bathroom, complete with a sliding barn door (with a handle Sam made once in a blacksmithing class) and a vintage porcelain towel rack (scavenged by my dad)

We had our first ever open studio and pottery sale this weekend, it was a good start for events to come! Plus we got help with the final lift of the new kiln and a few suggestions on future bathroom colors…

Not to be left out, Studio Cat Merlin is hard at work overseeing the Shipping Department (located in the house.) We will be introducing Merlin back to his job in the studio very soon, we just need to finish building things and make sure he has some comfy perches he can observe from. He’s resting up in preparation.

Comment
categories Custom Design, Milestone, Studio, Studio Cat
tags studio build, potters life, arkansas potters, arkansas pottery, studio life, studio cat

Finishing Touches

Jenny Dowd

It’s been awhile since the last update, it’s been an overwhelming few months. Things seem to be smoothing out and suddenly the studio is making sense.

The electric is finished, no water yet, but it’ll happen. We added insulation to the walls and sure, we still need to finish the walls but it just feels crazy not to make pots and work in our new space. The projects (studio, house, yard, pottery orders) keep piling up, so the strategy has been to work on a little of each at a time.

And oh it feels so very good to enjoy a cup of coffee in the morning in the studio!

One thing we did a little too early was move our small kiln over to the kiln patio. It was fine, it was great to run a load of bisque and feel like we are starting to get something accomplished again. But it rained that night and without any weather proofing we knew the kiln was likely to get very wet. Right before the rain started we scrambled and put together this make-shift guard, which totally worked but wasn’t really the plan.

So here’s the real solution - a greenhouse plastic sheeting. Sam built a frame and we attached the sheets, then moved the other kiln over. I’m sure we will need to tweak things a bit after the next rain, but everything feels much more protected for now.

Notice there is a ton of room in this kiln patio / greenhouse? Well, we’ve got another electric kiln on the way and plans to build a gas kiln in this area too. Plus storage for shelves, kiln furniture, a grinding wheel… pretty soon this won’t seem like much space!

Comment
categories New Ideas, Problem Solving, Process, Projects, Studio
tags dowd house studios, studio build, studio life, arkansas potter

Made for MADE

Jenny Dowd

Mugs, Mugs, Mugs! And one tuckered out studio cat…. because it’s tough work overseeing this kind of action.

So, what’s going on?

For the past few months I’ve been testing mugs for MADE in Jackson. This shop features handmade, unique goods from all over the country. The difficult part of the task: create a design to be produced exclusively for this shop, make it unique from the mugs I make for other shops in the area. Oh, and something I would not get sick of making.

To keep things simple, each mug has an outline of the Tetons - a striking landmark from this area. Each are filled with a variety of patterns, each a little similar yet different. This mug shape is also one that I have not made in awhile. My hope is that it will appeal to both men and women, making for a useful and perhaps, favorite gift.

Carving into the wet clay means that I’m left with a deep texture of the mountains and patterns. There are 2 versions of this mug, creamy ivory and black. For the black design the glaze is applied to the carved lines and wiped off - image on the above left. Then the mountains are coated with wax so that the color is protected when the whole mug gets dipped in the white glaze. (It looks totally different before firing!)

The wax burns off leaving the black glaze inlaid into the surface… here is a photo from a peek into the still hot kiln. And the black glaze is inlaid in the same way (minus the wax) on the bottom - to show off the “Made in Jackson Hole” stamp.

Finished mugs! The glazes, once wiped away around the mountains, leave a little halo of color. Something else that makes each one unique.

Find these mugs in Jackson at MADE or in their online shop!

Comment
categories Custom Design, Shops with Pottery, Studio
tags jackson hole mugs, MADE Jackson Hole, handmade pottery, studio life, studio cat