300

Artist: Marney McDiarmid

Thanks to each and every one of you for submitting your ceramic work, and especially Mignon for creating and curating this space. It was a treat to look through your submissions.

For brevity’s sake, a few honorable mentions, including: Mick Marineau’s and Barb Jensen’s whimsically painted animals and natural objects; Judith Duff’s well-glazed, wood-fired square plate; the classic work of Michael Hunt and Naomi Dalglish; and the distinctive graphic style of Aaron Sober’s painted plates. I liked casbah3d’s earthy corn plates and Frog Ponds Rock’s handbuilt nerikomi platter in white, also.

For me, the one that stood out the most in this collection was Marney McDiarmid’s McBurney Park bowl. (I hope I got your name right). I like the approach of telling the story of a neighborhood using handbuilt, translucent porcelain – which managed to look contemporary and retro at the same time. Good integration between form, style and message. I like the use of archival materials, photographs, relief, decals, oxided imprints and even interviews to build dimension, both visually and narratively. The piece gave me some new inspirations about storytelling through clay. Enjoy your beautiful art piece by Yasha Butler!
-- Leili Towfigh

294 & a contest for plate #300

Update: Thank you for all your submissions! Have a great weekend, and do look for plate #300 on Monday, December 14th. Cheers!

It's that time of the year again! Plate #300 is due on Monday, December 14th, and we're looking for your ideas. This time we're asking everyone to post images to our newly formed Flickr group, located here. If you can't post to Flickr, you can leave your submission in the comments on this post. And for Flickr members who love clay, feel free to use our other group for all other photos, located here.

We have a new judge for the contest, the lovely Leili Towfigh. Leili is an artist and educational technologist who works with whatever strikes her fancy: clay, paint, film, pixel, pencil, ranunculus, rusted metal, wool, felt, linoleum, wood, etc. She writes a monthly column, Eye to I, about fine arts and inspiration for Soul Pancake, and muses about art and the creative process on Beyond the Picture.

The winner will get their plate posted on Monday, December 14th as post #300. And! That lucky person will also get one of the amazing porcelain plates pictured above from the studio of Yasha Butler. Once again, thank you so much for all of the nice notes you've left on the blog. Now, let's see those plates :)

Rules:
1. In addition to plates we'll accept submissions for bowls and platters
2. Work must not have been published on this site
3. Of course it's totally fine to plug your own work. And remember, this contest is not limited to potters -- anyone can send us an url to a favorite plate
4. Multiple submissions are fine
5. Submit your plate by any/all of these means:
-- Flickr: The 300post group
-- Comments on this post: we'll need an url to an image of the piece
6. And, icing on the cake (i.e. not a requirement), tell us how it was done! We're a curious bunch!
7. The contest will close at noon Pacific/3pm Eastern on Friday, Dec. 11th

(If you're curious about the last contest, you can see that here)