Crazy for Bowls!

A sample of the results of my bowl-making fixation

I love ceramic bowls. When I lived in South Lake Tahoe there was a great ceramics studio at the local community college. For the last couple years that we lived there, my husband and I enrolled in a class every quarter. Our relationship was just blossoming and our time together in the pottery studio brings back fond memories. Almost a dozen years ago already!

circa 2002

There we are. Fresh and full of youthful innocence and love for clay and one another! Once I started making bowls, I could not stop. Note that I am working on a bowl in the photo. I snapped the above photo with my digital camera of a page from a photo album. The original photos were taken using film (a thin flexible strip of plastic coated with light-sensitive emulsion for exposure in a camera) before we owned a digital camera. Man, we've been together, like, forever!  ;-)

Our ceramic courtship ended abruptly when we moved from South Lake Tahoe to Quincy. While the small town of Quincy is blessed with a community college all its own, it unfortunately lacks a ceramic studio and all clay-art options.

In some ways it is just as well. Our cupboards and counters are full of our handmade plates, platters, mugs, lidded jars, and bowls. Especially bowls! And how many bowls does one really need?

Well, a few months ago, over Thanksgiving holiday, I decided maybe our home could accommodate one more bowl. 

One of our longtime, dear family friends is an accomplished potter. She has been working with clay for something like 60 years! Her name is Mardi Wood and she rocks the house. The weekend after Thanksgiving my parents, husband, son and I piled into the Prius and took the windy, breathtaking drive down Hwy. 1 from their farm to the not-so-hidden hamlet of Bolinas, Ca. Mardi was having an open studio along with numerous other artists who make their home in this unincorporated coastal community of Marin County. We did not have time to visit other studios but she was in good company: check out the studio tour webpage here. She is number 17. You can also view photos of her work on her website here.

Her work makes mine look as clunky and rudimentary as it is. She works in porcelain and some of her pieces are nearly paper thin. Many of her pieces are adorned with sketches of these regal long-horned cows that she grew to love in the Italian countryside. I love what she has to say about these cows. As taken directly from her website, let me share:

To tell a story through an animal...to use its story as part of an ancient narrative...while at the same time bringing to mind today's plight of our “engineered” cattle, their disguised flesh wrapped in plastic at our supermarket meat counters...I want to reveal ancient truths...visual stories of the ancient auroch of prehistoric caves, of the sacred and revered cow of pagan myth, the giver of milk and nourishment to man, of the Sumerian epic story of Gilgamesh whose mother was ‘Lady Wild Cow’...of the bull with great horns over which ancient Crete athletes vaulted and summersaulted...of the Maremma cattle still carrying the genes of prehistoric cattle and still revered by Italians as ‘tradizione’...of the poem, “Il Bove”, by Nobel prize honored poet, Carducci,..still studied by Italian school children...of the imagery of long horned cattle pulling the fine carts of Etruscans and Romans depicted on their ceramic forms... and later pulling the farmer’s plough...before tractors...I draw these animals who still forage in their native environment in the Maremma country of Italy.

I believe someone bought this piece while we were there. It is an example of one of her cow images and way out of my price range!

The little bowl I fell in love with is the color of honey, mead, the desert, a sunrise, Tuscany, antique paper, tanned flesh, and the warmth of a late summer afternoon........... It is similar to the one on the right in this photo and as you can see below. It was the glaze I was first drawn to but I also appreciate the feel of its conical shape and sturdy lightness in my hands. 

This special little bowl has been a welcome addition to our colorful bowl collection. Yay for functional art! It now graces our table and makes me smile.

Lastly, a photo of my two other treasured Mardi Wood creations.

Enjoy!