02/06/2026
The month of May was full of custom orders and I couldn’t be more grateful. Taking on ideas that are different from my usual work not only challenges me but helps me broaden my perspective on design. I love doing them.
This particular piece was my largest plate to date: a 14” textured wall sculpture reminiscent of a sun. The client wanted a carved design with a more loose organic outer shape and hints of gold to catch your eye as you walked past.
I designed it with tiered levels to draw your eye inwards and added a light grog to the clay to give it a bit more texture, something that I think worked really well with the carved sun rays.
If you swipe right you’ll come across my very stressful hiccup. Based on one previous vase I had made many years back, I had assumed that painting gold lustre directly on the clay would give it a nice matte yet shimmering finish. It did not!! Instead it turned almost charcoal black with hints of purple where it was applied too lightly. A nightmare! But I was not stressing too much yet as I knew you could refire it to cone 6 and fully burn off the gold. As I do sometimes when it drips outside of my signature gold dots. But. This did not happen either, which completely stumped me, and it still left a reside! After much thought, I turned to gold leaf…and discovered it was the perfect solution all along. Delicate, light and glimmering. Exactly what we were after.
