Happy New Year!

This is the final post for 2011. This last week of the year, after the crazy, hectic holidays, and before the start of the new year I like to update all my new calendars, pay my bills, balance my checkbook, and find all my scattered ‘to do’ lists, to see if I can finish things up.

This year I had a ‘to do’ dating from 2003, that needed a bit more time to complete. That year I had attended the NY Ceramics Fair, where contemporary artists and antique dealers display their wares for collectors and designers. I somehow got some free tickets, and attended the show across the street from the Metropolitan Museum on 5^th Avenue. That first year I went they had a display of antique ceramics from the Deerfield Museum, and I fell in love with a delftware punch bowl. So I did some research on punch bowls, and sketched out my version of a bowl with a fish, with the words ‘Keep Me Swimming', traditionally used inside a punch bowl to encourage replenishment. It was time to make it my own, for this year’s holiday.

Sorry, I forgot to photograph the making of the bowl, but it was 14 pounds of porcelain clay, with a thrown foot, to give it height. I planned on making 24 cups, with handles, with each having a number.

I mixed up some clay slip, using cobalt and a little red iron oxide to tone down the blue. So I threw 27 cups, with the same shape, sort of, but the sizes definitely vary. The cups were trimmed with a rounded bottom, and I added a thrown foot from a coil.

I had a limited amount of the chosen porcelain clay, so I ditched the idea of a handle on the cup, and I’m glad I did because they stack nicely!

So, I made it just in time, and I tried an eggnog recipe from Alton Brown. We had a bottle of Maker's Mark on the side, and voila! a new tradition.

Another new tradition this year was my decoration of a little sculpture that was a joint effort between my daughter, Cathy (a VERY talented painter) and myself...she did a small sculpture and I added some dark slip to bring out the 'lines' and put it into a dark clay shadow box. It is very much at home on my mantle, and a little  Grinch-Santa hat dressed it up for Christmas.

I want to wish everyone a very Happy New Year, and all the best for 2012.

This year's tree, the loveliest of all