Featured Studio Bowl

Once again I doubt someone will know this mark but worth a try. Nice quite thinly potted bowl. Glaze is understated but handsome. I’m a sucker for studio pottery. It came from a serious collectors house so I brought it home. I doubt it’s anyone and it has a chip but I’ll just use it if I can’t attribute it to a name.

Edit: the incised mark kind of looks like “uno”

 

I don’t know for certain, it looks like it was made in a one piece plaster mold by the shape inside by the way it follows the outside with the inside depression. Still hand made studio pottery if this technique was used in making this bowl.

if I were making bowls this way first throw a bowl and invert it on a flat surface and close it on all 4 sides or use a ring with whatever is handy that will hold up to the weight of the liquid plaster. Once the plaster has dried for a few days pop the bowl from the mold (a little Pam oil spray beforehand helps the release) and pour porcelain clay slip into the plaster mold until it is full. The slip will dry from the outside in and you can see it change thickening at the top, when the desired thickness is realized pour out the remaining slip back into its container. When sufficiently dry remove the bowl from the mold, the bowl will shrink as it dries pulling away from the plaster. Then add finishing touches like scalloping the rim. With this technique you can have any number within reason of molds going at the same time.

is there any evidence of throwing rings inside, it could also be thrown or trimmed this way… but it just has that kind of look? Anyway nice bowl great find, I like the glaze and it’s nicely applied.

 

Maybe this studio

https://www.google.com/search?q=B+Pratt+studio+pottery+UNO&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari

 

I did wonder if it was made via a mold. The Pratt ceramics guy seems to have a pretty unique mark on his pieces which unfortunately doesn’t match mine. Unless maybe he’s got others working out of his studio putting their own mark on pieces but then his name is going on then with a sharpie somehow.

 

I didn’t know if that printed part “B Pratt” was done with a stain or ink on the surface? Maybe an early piece? Interesting if there are two Pratt’s slip casting pottery.

 

I just assumed it was a sharpie or marker but it could be something more thought out and permanent. Yeh could be an early piece. Maybe I’ll shoot him a msg.

 

I was just flipping through a book I bought at the same house. It was inscribed as a gift to a member of the Pratt family. No B initial in that name. So this was likely made by a family member of theirs.

 

Mystery solved, I still wonder if it was a family member learning the process from the other Pratt I posted, working with one of his molds and glazes or just glazing one of his bisque pieces… probably not, but I have taught lots of friends and family over the years. But it doesn’t really make much difference. Geez all my early work decorated friends and family members homes thinking back, lol… They said they liked it, ha ha ha.

 

Doesn’t seem a far fetched stretch! Thanks for tracking that Pratt down. I still may shoot them an email. I’m so sentimental that I’d never get rid of a piece of pottery made by a friend of family member. That’s the one thing that kind of surprised me at thrift stores. The amount of amateur and not so amateur studio pottery. Much of the lower quality stuff to just horrible quality stuff clearly must have been made by the owners children or other family. I could understand not displaying it. Just getting rid of it kind of surprised me.