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Upcoming Events | |
February 22-24
Grove Park Arts & Crafts Conference
Grove Park Inn
Asheville, NC
Contemporary Craftsfirms Show*
Fri. 1-6 p.m.
Sat. 12-6 p.m.
Sun. 11 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Admission: $10
* Ephraim Pottery's booth is in the Hoover Room.
If you're into Arts and Crafts, you owe it to yourself to attend this show at least once in your lifetime. The best contemporary work and antiques from around the country are showcased at the historic Grove Park Inn, which is a destination unto itself.
June 1-2
Arts & Crafts Chicago
Concordia University - Geiseman Gymnasium
River Forest, Illinois
Sat. 10-7, Sun. 10-4
Admission: $7
Online events calendar
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New catalog | |
We will be introducing new pottery and tiles in April. Pieces will be posted in our online store. We will send an annoucement by email and post on our Facebook page when the new pieces are available.
A print catalog will also be mailed to everyone on our postal mailing list. If you've purchased from us in the past year and/or have received previous catalogs, you're on the mailing list. If you're not on the list but would like to receive a catalog in the mail, please email your name and complete postal mailing address to info@ephraimpottery.com. Please put "April Catalog" in the subject line.
If your address has changed since last October, please email your updated address to info@ephraimpottery.com. Please put "Update mailing list" in the subject line. Each time we send out a mailing, a huge number of catalogs are returned catalogs due to incorrect or "forwarding expired" addresses. As everyone is aware, printing and mailing costs are expensive and having correct addresses helps us keep our costs down. Also, if you no longer wish to receive a print catalog in the mail, please let us know that and we'll remove you from our list.
Thank you for your help! |
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What's going on
in the studio?
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Greetings! ,
Welcome to the February issue of News & Notes. It's been snowing a lot and we've had bitterly cold temperatures. The city of Lake Mills flooded part of Commons Park to make an ice rink and families gather to skate and watch the kids play in the snow. Ice sculptures carved during the recent Knickerbocker Festival dot the downtown sidewalks. Given how cold it's been, they should be around to enjoy for awhile. Everything is white and sparkly and beautiful... and slippery.
Yes, we are in the heart of winter. Spring still seems a long way off, but there are subtle signs. It now stays light until well after five o'clock and we've had some stunning technicolor sunsets. Gardening talk has already begun around the lunch table and there was a big garden show last weekend. The narcissus bulbs in the planter in my window have spiked and I'm waiting to see buds. As surely as we know there will be more snow and ice and probably another blizzard before then, we know that spring is coming.
So for now, we'll do our best to enjoy winter and to find something to be grateful for every day. We'll make soup and roast turkey and shovel the sidewalks. And we'll let the eternal flame of love that burns in the heart of winter warm us on Valentine's Day.
Wishing you comfort, warmth, and love,
Kristin Cramer
Marketing Manager |
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Framed plaques make a splash at shows | | |
Ephraim working to add frames to its line-up
 | | This hand-painted ceramic plaque will be at the Grove Park Arts & Crafts Show |
If you were able to attend the Holiday Pottery Fest in Lake Mills in December or the Los Angeles Pottery Show in Pasadena last month, you got to see some examples of a new concept we've been working on: framed ceramic plaques. Ephraim artist Leah Purisch has been working on transferring her painting skills from canvas to ceramic. Inspired by the hand-painted vases and plaques created a century ago by the artists at Rookwood Pottery in her native Cincinnati, Leah has been developing techniques for creating softly lit landscapes and sensitively rendered portraits on 5x7" ceramic plaques.
While Leah was working on that, artist John Raymond was working on designing a complementary line of frames. John has been a woodworker for many years and has had a long-standing desire to combine this passion with his love for Arts and Crafts. Due to the successful introduction of our new tile line last year and our customers' subsequent demand for frames, his dream has finally become a reality. John left his glazing duties in January and is now doing woodworking full time. Ephraim has rented space in a nearby business park for a woodworking shop and has ordered the equipment John needs. We anticipate that the new woodshop will be up and running by the end of February.
As you have probably realized by now, developing new products is a process. Several months' worth of hard work and trial and error has gone into getting us to this point. We are now working on putting on the finishing touches and hope to be able to offer tile frames, framed handpainted plaques, and portrait services to our customers in the coming months. We look forward to sharing more about these projects with you as they develop. In the meantime, you can see some of our framed landscapes at the Grove Park Arts & Crafts Conference in Asheville later this month (see sidebar at left for details). |
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New marks for 2013 highlight collaboration | | |
For the first time, glazers' initials now included
As many of you are aware, Ephraim Pottery changes its studio marks at the beginning of each year. This allows  collectors to identify the year a piece was made. We have a larger mark that we use for pieces that have more space on the foot, and a smaller mark for pieces with less space. This year's mark has a tick mark at the 3 o'clock position. The studio marks for 2013 are shown at right.
While we are keeping the same format as we have used in previous years for our studio marks, the artists' marks have changed. Prior to this year, each piece bore the initials (small mark) or signature (large mark) of what we termed the "principal artist," which in most cases was the person who threw and/or sculpted the piece. Since our work is collaborative, in almost all cases more than one artist worked on each piece, but the other contributors weren't identified.
This year, in addition to the studio mark, each piece bears the initials of the potter, the sculptor, and the glazer. Recently, changes in health and direction have led to changes in responsibility; i.e., potter Ken Nekola is sculpting exclusively and is no longer throwing. This means that many more pieces have a different potter and sculptor. Also, for a long time we have been wanting to figure out a way for the glazers to be able to mark the pieces they work on, and we have finally found a way to do it. So this year, in addition to the studio mark, pieces will also bear three sets of initials. Here are examples of the different marks.
Here is an example of the foot of an Integrity Vase with the new marks for 2013. In addition to our large studio mark, this piece bears the potter's mark of Paul McVicker (PM), the sculptor's mark of Ken Nekola, and the glazer's mark of John Raymond.
We are proud of the talents of our individual artists as well as the collaborative nature of our work. We hope that this new system of marks better reflects how our pieces are made.
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