LaBote 2015 – Studio Community

Art is a gift that keeps giving to your heart and soul. We are looking forward to an artful year in 2015.

Here is a look at new works and some of our favorites from our studio community. It’s a pleasure and privilege to work with other artists.

Last night Dan showcased his new pitcher. Freshly glazed and waxed, we adored the intricate handle details. He threw the stoneware pitcher and then hand built the handle to look like a woven grape wines. Wow is all we got! can’t wait to see final look.

Colleen has a way with symmetry and a wide range of works. From large forms to small ones like these jaw dropping porcelain Christmas ornaments…

We are all about peace, so we were cranking out some peace for our holiday gifting.. perfect on a wall as a daily reminder. We are spreading it one sign at a time!! Here are two examples:

There is a whole lot more… Follow us on Instagram for stories, videos and more.

Take a peek at our shop LaBote on Etsy.

Drop us a private line for purchase questions:
surprisesaffron@gmail.com

LaBote Fall/Winter 2014

We are two creatives who delight in making one of a kind art pieces, including jewelry and pottery. Excited to share our passion with you and hope every pieces you buy brings you joy and luck!

We have been busy busy in the studio getting ready for fall and winter. So much inspiration and excitement is building. We are primarily getting ready for two shoes that are coming up.

Curious what we are cooking up 😜 check us out:

1. Instagram: Shop LaBote see what comes out of our wheel and kiln first! Follow us.

2. Etsy: Shop LaBote purchase our art. Hope you’ll find something you love!

If you like some of our creations but you just want them in different color or shape or etc. we make custom orders to please our customers’ unique tastes.

Update 9/15:
Just added new products and a video on Instagram. Check it out!

Please spread the love and the post, thank you!!

Find something you love!

Surprise..surprise… not everyone is in love with their job. As a mentor, friend, colleague I always hear variations of:
‘meh it’s ok’
‘I just don’t love this’
‘it’s good money’
‘feeds the family’
‘it’s allright, like the people’
‘it’s just a job’
‘it’s convenient and pays the bills’
‘putting kids through college is not cheap and we are not in Sweden!’
‘ugh, got the golden cuffs on, addicted to my paycheck’
‘it’s boring but I am good at it’
…. and so on…

Reality is this: it is ok that not everyone is head over heels for their job. Yes, despite all LinkedIN articles and HBR catchy headlines, this is reality for millions of people. At some level it is ‘just’ a job and only ‘one’ part of your true life. So my response usually goes ‘ok, but find something you love to do. Not saying find a job … find something in your life that you enjoy doing’. This could be as simple as cooking, writing, jumping off planes, surfing, book club, spending time with your kids, bird watching, traveling, blogging 😉 … you get the idea.

Recently in one of these sessions tables were turned… and I was asked ‘huh ok … so what is that something that you love to do, what is that for you?’. For a moment, which felt like an eternity, I was stumped… was not expecting the question. Before I could open my mouth, visuals of my pottery studio and things I have made popped into my brain. Told her ‘I love making stuff out of clay… oh let me show you’

Here is ‘shooting star’:

Here is ‘fun’:

Here is ‘hope’:

Before boring her I stopped at showing her these 3 clay and porcelain ornaments. She got the point – and was surprised, said she expected that my thing would have been something more lofty or tied to work. Hmmm … Will probe on that next time, but for now let’s adjourn; I have a to run to the pottery studio!!!

So have you found something you love to do??

Spring comes to LaBote 🍀🌻

Don’t know about you but we are waiting for sprint to arrive. The days are now longer and more light. We have been busy in our pottery studio/shop LaBote, working on delightful things for spring and all the senses.

Mood Clouds Wall Art – We want sunshine!
Always looking for the silver lining.

See more details of this item in our shop.

White/Green Modern Vase – We want flowers!
Who does not! Looking forward to gardening and flowers everywhere.
See more details of this item in our shop.

Multipurpose Bowl – Peacock
Beauty in intricate details… just like all signs of spring in air, water, and earth!
See more details of this item in our shop.

Want to see what else we are up to… visit our store LaBote: https://www.etsy.com/shop/LaBote

Let us know what’s your favorite piece and how you plan to greet this Spring. Cheers!!

Keeping Family Arts Alive

Pottery tradition goes way back in our family…. our late grandfather was a master potter. Somehow his genes passed along, as I keep finding myself more and more at the studio.

Sadly, I did not have the pleasure of learning from him directly, but grateful somehow I caught the pottery bug and will continue on the tradition. He used to make his own clay, as my dad shares the stories. We are spoiled nowadays; just buy few pounds of whatever type clay you want and you are ready.

Pottery is not just wheel throwing, there are some many techniques and hand building. For example, I like combining the skills – throwing part of a bowl and finishing it off with hand building part of it.

Lately, I have found myself making lot of owls. Owls of every shape, size, and personality. This was a spontaneous inspiration, as very often I don’t set out to make a specific piece. Everyone has a style of working – some of my studio peers set off with a very specific idea like ‘I will make a carafe and two tumblers’. I arrive at the studio without a thought… the clay takes shape as I start playing, throwing, or hand building.

Ahhh… the world of glazing; it can make or ruin a pice of pottery. Luckily I do have a glazing muse, it’s called Nikita! A studio friend who has a magic touch with glazes. Usually a quick chat with Nikita results in picking the right glazes. Thank you Nikita!

This owl is called Frankie – the blue eyes reminded us of Frank Sinatra. It is handbuilt from ochre clay, hand painted, and then glazed. Isn’t it a hoot!!

Visit LaBote on Etsy to explore more unique art pieces.

Do what you love, and love what you do.

Holiday Gifting Edition

We decided to share with you some of our favorite Holiday Gifting ideas. This is usually a wonderful time of the year but also possibly the most stressful – as many try to shop for gifts and worry about giving/not giving.

Giving starts with true care and knowing the people you are giving to. Some of the best things we received were not material gifts at all. Last year, one of the best gifts I received was a lavender eye pillow made by my good friend using lavender from her garden and stitching the pillow herself.

With a few ideas we hope to reduce your stress and make this a great year of giving:

1. Hosting a dinner or potluck
What can be more cozy and fun – we are social creatures. Giving from your time and opening your home to your friends is a great gift in itself.

2. Hand Made
Never gets old to make some of the gifts you are giving. In the process of it, you will even figure out who you care enough to handmade something for or not. We made ceramic owls this year for our nearest and dearest ones; some as desk ornaments an some hanging. See a few examples here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/LaBote

3. Care Baskets
This a new one for us. This year we are making care baskets filled with easy goodies to give for friends in need. Here are some of the items: gas card, crackers, cheese, fruits, home made cookies,… give practical things that will help them stretch their budget.

For more ideas, we have compiled some of our favorite sites:

For the Artist
Give a gift certificate to a local art studio.

art supplies:
http://www.dickblick.com/

prints and other:
http://fab.com

For the Foodie
Give a gift certificate for a local cooking class.

http://fab.com

http://chefscatalog.com

For the Humanitarian
First, if you can, give to legitimate charities in your city.

Second, do global good, give to legitimate charities that help humanity globally.

For the Fashion Lover

http://fab.com

http://shopbop.com/ci/4/lp/holiday-gift-guide.html

For the Person who has Everything
Surprise them and give them a hug!

Quality always wins over quantity, both for gifts and friends. Giving is not about giving a lot of stuff, it’s in giving meaningfully.
Happy giving!

Glazing Class at MCS

What keeps our brains youthful must be curiosity and learning new things we care about. Today was a day like that — we took a class in glazing from Jennifer at MCS.

Three hours of fascinating information that left us wanting more. So much that she decided to schedule part two.
We started with basic chemistry, history of where all this came from, and what glaze is made of. People for centuries have been making pots and vessels. Jennifer and Allison showed examples of old and new to educate us. I am always so impressed by how amazing something made 5000 years ago is so much better than many made today. Especially some of the Chinese pottery and ceramic glazing is just exquisite. We also learned that salt glazing was invented in Germany. One day, I would like to go see it done where it was born.

Part of the lecture was spent critiquing glazed pieces we had made. Jennifer called out all the good and the BAD! You can see Isaac was a good sport about being made an example:

The tips and tricks we learned were great. For instance, how to spray a fine mist over areas you want a thinner coverage of glaze. Can’t wait to apply what we learned.

fresh out of the kiln: Patterns and Glazes

Second batch of my pottery just came out of the kiln yesterday. Every time it is a surprise because you just never know what your pieces are going to look like.

This time I was focusing on patterns and glazes. Tried some patterns to see how they would come through (or not) the glazing. Also took some risks in glazing to learn more.

Applied the rope pattern and some carving techniques to these pieces. The blue piece, mainly due to the glaze, exceeded my expectation. The blue glaze broke on the rope pattern beautifully making the carmel brown ridges enhancing the rope effect. But the same pattern in shiny bone glaze did not work out so much. Turns out I wiped off too mug of the iron oxide I had applied underneath it (the dark spots you see).


The truly risky piece and the biggest surprise was this one, shape was inspired by artichokes. Used this glaze called Amy’s green, because the piece is so organic and I wanted to try it. For the inside I used white glaze. Those of you who have experimented with pottery and glazing will know how devastating it can be to ruin a pot you really like. I was told this glaze can look like ‘baby poop‘ if it is not applied right. So I followed a fellow potters advice about dipping the pot very quickly and hope for the rest! I nearly jumped up and down in happiness when I saw the final result.

The black cube I made did not exactly turn out… was not sure how black or what kind of reaction it would have once fired. Used wax and white glaze for the heart and holes. It is OK for an experiment but learned to be more intentional with this glaze for next time.

If you have any tips and tricks – patterns you like, please comment and share!