This vase was a throw back to my much younger self. When I was very small, I made a school project about king fishers with hand drawn pages, (this love of birds goes way back!). When I was in my teens in my first years of pottery, I flipped through a ceramics magazine and landed on a vase that was wide, with a long narrow opening. This is a difficult shape to throw even for an experienced potter, I think, because the narrow bit is very sensitive to getting thrown off balance as the neck is being collared in. My teacher could easily have said that I should try a more simple forms. But he didn't, instead he was like, 'we can do that'. And he helped me make it. It was very special to me, so even though I was not ornately decorating pottery at the time, I painted it with kingfishers. I still have the original piece. I was thinking about this story and the power and generousity of a good teacher. And I wondered if I could pull it off- so here it is again, a second version 30 years later.
Shows a kingfisher in flight and also perched on a pine branch. Perfect on it's own or graced with a single stem.
