The Pots come home: Rick Van Dyke

I have been holding off making much mention of this potter, because I wanted to feel like the only one in Dallas to know about him. According to his website, he’s not selling here yet. But just one look at his talent tells me that could change in a heartbeat. Have you ever seen blue and green glazes this intense, while still being kind of subtle? Must be the lack of clear overglaze. Ya know, he was able to tell me exactly what the chemicals were that caused those colors. I might be wrong, but maybe there was strontium and barium involved? Next time I will take notes. And photos.

I had stumbled upon his work online right before our last trip to Austin, and was super lucky to find him showing a *ton* of his work at the Cactus & Succulent Society show at Zilker park botanical gardens. Why didn’t I get photos?? Because I was too busy trying to snatch my fave pots before the other throngs got hold of them. Very mature, I know. Once we’d made choices and calmed down somewhat, we got to chatting with Rick. He told us that the way he got into pottery was not straight-forward. As befits a great Austin story, it all had to do with a girl. She was into pottery so to get into her good graces, he too took it up. I asked if she was still doing it, and he said, “Nope. But I’m glad I am!” We are glad too, my friend.

We were then even more impressed by his super calm, laid back personality. Ah, Austin! Where true creativiy dwells around every corner, and doesn’t shout for attention.

Here’s a few of Rick’s pots that found their way into our home. We love love love them! Thank you, Rick. If/when I get my store open, will you please do me the honor of showing your work?

New pottery with strong links to mid-century; Adam Silverman

Every time I see one of these pots, with their mid-century shapes and glazes, I feel transported back to my great-aunt’s living room. She had a nifty little collection of glass, pottery, and wood sculptures culled from garage sales,
local shops in East Dallas, and her travels with her four sisters (the ‘kids’). The image in the last post with the orange and white pots were something she really would have grooved on, because orange was her favorite color ever. Those pots are the work of a modern potter living in California, whose work I’ve recently became aware of. While much of Adam Silverman’s recent rise in the design world might stem from his recently involvement with the high-end Californian ceramic company, Heath, he certainly has crafted his own incredible body of work, and will continue to do so after his collaboration with that company.

Because I don’t know much about the man other than feeling like he’s a lost twin soul who shares my obsession with texture and color and who harbors a fierce dedication to letting his materials embrace their weird organic nature,
let me include this from the introduction to his new book, aptly called Adam Silverman Ceramics,

“Adam Silverman’s pottery thrives on duality. Beautiful and ugly, refined and unpredictable, resolved and organic…His pots and sculptures are a harmony of contrasts in the search for perfect imperfection.” – Shepard Fairey

If you don’t believe me or Mr. Fairey, just feast your eyes on the gorgeous dualities going on in these:

Pottery, Please

It’s really kind of funny. I was a lucky brat who grew up in a neat ‘century modern’ house (though back then it was called ‘gently used’) with artsy parents who carefully collected and traded for lots of nifty sculptures, pottery, and a few drawings. Dad was an illustrator and taught classes at East Texas State University. At the time, pottery was enjoying a resurgence in popularity, and so I suppose when one of the other art teachers wanted to trade for an illustration they often had pottery to trade. There were (and mostly still are) some pretty awesome pieces. Yet the pottery was never my favorite. I always prefered the bright modern slickness of the plexi tube with multiple color rings that hung from the ceiling in the kitchen, and the weird shiny fiberglass piana-like-thing that hung on the wall in the playroom.

So why is it that I am only now growing a fascination for pottery? I love the sculptural shapeliness of course, but I’m also really drawn into the textures of the glazes. Check these out, from Heath Ceramics:

More posts on potters, pottery, and ceramics to come!

Austin delivers Succulent-astic!

 

We feel pretty lucky to live only about three hours from one of our favorite places, and therefore strive to get to Austin as often as possible.  This time we hit the jackpot when Steve was called upon to do a few hours of work down Austin way right about the time Labor Day rolled around.  Since the gas and partial hotel stay was covered, we took advantage and booked a three-night stay.  During those four days, a very small portion of which actually had anything to do with ‘work,’ we challenged ourselves to get out of our Austin-rut (south Congress, yawn yawn) and see some new stuff.  One thing that I had really been wanting to visit was the East Austin Succuents/ Tillery Gardens store.  Turned out it was only about 8 minutes from our hotel.  We tried to arrive early enough that the temps (which quickly rose to over 100 every single day) weren’t *too* much of a problem.

Here we are wandering the awesome acreage, doing alot of chin rubbing and head scratching over all the funky/freaky native plant goodness!

Having devoured the last six month’s postings by Austinite (and award winning!) blogger Pam Penick’s wonderful “Diggin”, as well as the advice of others who’d been there, I was super stoked to check out this wonderland of plants.  Not only did they have the *garden variety* (groan) succulents I’ve been buying for years,but also a number of unusual and new-to-me species of succulents, PLUS a load of native Texas shrubs, trees, and my favorite… awesmome handcrafted pottery!  (okay, this was more than a mere journey to see neat plants.  I really wanted to check out what other hypertufa artists were up to!) My images didn’t do these pots justice at all.

I picked up a few tons (well, pounds) of glass shard rocks in beautiful blues and greens for a future display on the front-garden pond, and a goodly number of small funky succulents.  But my most amazing discovery was a potter whose work I will devote an entire blog entry to.  We were lucky enough to meet him in person at the succulent show that was going on that same weekend right across town at the Zilker Park Botanical Gardens!  How lucky could we be!?  Here’s me holding one of his pieces on display at East Austin/Tillery Gardens.  So glad I held out and waited till we were in the presence of the Man himself.  Not only did he offer up a ton of great pots with the most intense glazes, but many of them were potted up with incredible succulents and cactuses.  We displayed a good deal of self control in acquiring only three.  But we’ll be back.