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Your Pottery In A Thrift Store


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Got this e-mail today

 

(Hi Mark -- Found a candle holder at a Boulder, Colorado thrift store today - wondered why it reminded me of the set of bowls in the cupboard until I discovered the LHP on the base.  Spent many years in Blue Lake and Arcata...guessing my old favorite mug must be over 20 years old!

 
Anyhow, just wanted to comment we've put a lot of years on our pottery and it's still at dinner every night.  Sure miss Blue Lake and the ocean but the mountains are wonderful too.  Glad to see you are still in business!
 
Regards-)
 
A little back back story-I did a Denver art show for 5 years straight  in late summer and gave it up-not because it did not make $. I always did over 10k but its just to far for me. My guess is I gave it up in 2004 or earlier.
This is not the 1st thrift store pottery story for me I'm sorry to say.
I sign my work LHP for Liscom Hill Pottery hence the LHP
if you make pots and sell them for 40 years you get this stuff now and then in your mail box.
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The riddle is solved maybe. A thrift store gem found just the other day holds 28oz. Mark (AKA Frank the car salesman) can you confirm this was made by you? Looks very much like your glazes and Dave's porcelain and well made. This would be my first piece I have of yours if it is.

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I have seen pottery I have made for others at thrift stores. I like to tell myself "Oh no the person must have passed away and the family didn't realize what a work of art they had". This is however a joke to protect my fragile ego. Some of the earlier pieces were real pieces of you know what. They deserved the hammer and the landfill, Better to edit before firing and just go to reclaim these days. At least they felt well enough to donate.

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Thats one of my mugs-does not surprise me I have done two shows a year in Tempe Arizona for 23 years and five spring shows in Tuscan-although Tuscan was over 7-8 years ago.Maybe  5,000 mugs maybe more?

Many decades a few of us potters talked about some day finding our pots in thrift stores-My ego is long over that talk.

Enjoy the mug-its homemade glaze reduction fired on Daves porcelain to cone 11.

I no longer use that brown glaze much.

Tempe is going to end pretty soon for me and I will not be going back to Tuscan with pots. I love Kirchner caverns -been there 3 time and could do 3 more trips-Really like the Chiricahua mountains and the wildlife there.-I will go back for that.

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That is a very lovely mug! If I had seen it I would have snapped it up, quite pleased with someone else's foolishness in donating such a wonderful piece. 

My friends and family are always showing me handmade pottery that they find at thrift stores. I have thought about the indignity of seeing one of my pieces on the dusty shelves of Goodwill someday but the truth is that many things even of great value end up there. I have a couple friends that find antique gold jewelry worth hundreds priced at fifty cents or two dollars. Because the truth is that if you have no use for something and nowhere to store it, suddenly it has no value at all and becomes a burden. I have taken to asking my friends and family before I make things for them because I don't want to give them a useless gift that they feel obligated to keep and display, but something they can honestly use. And if it becomes clutter I would prefer to see it move on to someone else or be given to a thrift shop than thrown in the trash! 

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Thanks for the confirmation Mark. I love it, plus it is my SIZE. If it's any consolation this is the first of yours I've seen. Not many great pots on the thrift shop shelves of the Metro Phoenix Area, but if there is I'm buying them.

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What

If you want more of a selection I'll be in Tempe Az on Mill Ave between 4th and 5th  streets booth #1123 and #1121 on the east side on April 8-9-10th

Its my last spring show there-Back In December same booth-most likely that will be it for Az for me-so its soon or never . Its a 2,400 mile drive for me.

I make all size mugs and have a huge selection-just bring one of yours and we can trade.

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Hey Mark,

One of the biggest challenges I find is tying to determine how a particular glaze effect is accomplished. I just love the effect on the mug that WHAT found. Would you be kind enough to tell how you achieved the result?

I have a dozen or so books on glazing, but none of them show the effect you have on that mug. I think that I would ultimately like to compile a book of my own with specific glaze effects and the process and recipes used to achieve the effects.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,

JohnnyK

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JohnnyK

Here goes-1st its cone 11 reduction fired gas kiln porcelain clay.That gives it the colors that pop.

next that mug has a sprayed (glaze jet) interior glaze which is a rutile blue base I have made for me by the ton

The outer mug is bottom dipped in my red black and then lip diped in my red black glaze then in center section I used Mels Orange dabs applied with a skunks tail homemade brush-then top dipped 2/3 with my rutile blue glaze-which makes it flux and run.

Most of my work is runny glazes piled over each other in some fashion to get a runny effect.

I cannot say this enough-I have used these glazes for many many decades and know what they do and how far they move. I also throw a glaze catcher foot where glaze can pool without spilling over.-the last piece is where they go in kiln depending on what glazes are on what pots so they do not get overtired. Stacking is another element that matters in my car kiln with most of these glazes.

This glazing is what sets my work apart at shows and is one reason I have so many customers-its not for everybody and I do a few solid blander colors so I have a mix of of forms and glazes but my multicolors really stand out.

I've had 40 years working with these glazes since collage glaze calc days-you get to know what the combos work well in that time.

Hope that was clear enough

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This topic seems to have become two topics.

 

First, let's not assume that a thrift shop find was discarded by the original owner. Much of their inventory, I think, is acquired when folks die. Maybe there were no heirs, or the work was just not the taste of the inheritor. I'm pretty sure that most of the pots I have made or acquired will not be as loved and treasured by anyone else in my family.

 

Second, thanks to Mark, I think I finally know why I could never reproduce the "pop" of one particular celadon-glazed porcelain mug with iron/rutile decoration, even though all the clay and glazes were the same. The mug must have been in a sweet spot in the kiln that got that extra heat and reduction.

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  • 1 month later...

I think of finding well made thrift store pottery as rescuing them. I have found a peter king stein and also a candlestick holder made by his studio at the thrift, a nice large mug from a tennesse potter i had heard of and my best rescue to date: 2 matching Daniel Rhodes goblets. I still am sad i couldn't rescue that vase i found a while back, it was a good size by a potter I had never heard of but very well made but at the time money was tight so i hope whoever rescued it after I found it gives it a good home.

 

When i was in college after me bringing in my Peter King stein to ask if it was really a peter king, my professor showed me the trick of rubbing a little ball clay across the signature to read it better. He asked me if i couldn't read the sig. How did i know it was peter king's...i told him the handle looked just like the handles i had seen before on his wares. My professor said you know you made it big when you start finding your work in the thrifts...so i keep looking to find a bowl of mine so i can claim 'i have made it'

I did have a weird thrift store experience this past week. I was looking thru some books at my local goodwill and found a book highlighting my area as a tourist destination. I opened it up to a page to see what they decided to highlight and there was picture of me, throwing on the wheel, in that shirt i hated but wore anyway cause if it got clay stained i didn't care and it was warm and i needed warmth in that drafty hallway where i was demoing...my hair was falling out of its bun, threating to fall into my spinning pot and someone snapped a photo and put me in a book published 7 years ago and no one told me. Lol.

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