Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Heart Lab: Pigeon Toe Ceramics


OK, I'm not gonna lie... ever since I saw Demi Moore in Ghost with her earthy rendition of Beals' famous flashdance look, I've had a secret desire to chop off all of my hair, straddle a potter's wheel and get my hands dirty (I can do without the whole Whoopi Goldberg part).

Pigeon Toe Ceramics, a fairly new brand, was founded last December by Lisa Hough. Every piece is hand-thrown porcelain on the wheel, made by hand in her Portland studio and then hand embellished. She also has an etsy shop at PigeonToeCeramics.etsy.com. She describes her work as rustic chic with Scandinavian influence - I couldn't agree with her more. She also has a collaborative artist series called PTC, Alyson Graves of Unruly Things (amazing blog by the way) is her first guest artist.

She kindly agreed to give us an exclusive look at her process in the studio. All of these beautiful photographs were taken by another talented artist Alicia Carrier. Enjoy!

1. The centering sweet shot
2. Centering the clay on the wheel to throw off the hump


3. Delineating the bottom of a thimble cup
4. Opening the clay to make a thimble cup
5. Widening out the floor of a thimble cup to get it to the correct size
6. Cleaning up the thimble cup before I remove from the wheel



7. Lifting the wall of a small tuck pot on the wheel
8. Creating the attached saucer of the tuck pot last from extra clay at the bottom


9. Unloading the kiln after a bisque fire
10. Bisqued tripod pots ready for glazing
13. Waiting for the clear glaze to dry on a pleat vessel
11. Pouring out glaze from a small tripod pot
12. Cleaning the excess glaze off carefully with a sponge


Make sure to visit www.pigeontoeceramics.com/our-process/ for a more detailed look of the process!

Thanks Lisa!!

10 comments:

Michelle Engel Bencsko said...

Beautiful. And I always love watching potters at work.

Unknown said...

it's my dream to one day have space in my home with my own potter's wheel, I haven't thrown a pot since high school.
I love everything in Pigeon Toe's shop. I definitely need a tripod pot of my own.

Waxy said...

Very Ghost! Wish I had the patience and talent to master the potting wheel!

b a i l e y d o e s n ' t b a r k said...

I love Pigeon Toe - beautiful work. I have my eye on the large tuck pot! Portland seems to have all the good ones!

Suzanne said...

ha! i'm pretty sure that movie is what inspired me to take a little pottery course many years ago.
so neat to see the studio and process - love her work!

Anonymous said...

I checked out the etsy shop. I love these. It would look great in my apartment. Thanks!
:D

elizabethrosasjewelry said...

gorgeous work ptc...

claire platt said...

this is such a nice post! her pieces are stunning and i love seeing the whole process photographed like that!

Bonbon Oiseau said...

fantastic posty--i love seeing the proicess unfild like htis---and her work is fantastic!

Chakra Pennywhistle said...

Lovely! I own a pigeon toe bud vase and it is beautiful! I also love to watch potters at work. Very calming :)