“Comfort” Slipware Emotion Vases made in the lockdown Corona period to try to comfort each other. (H21,5cm/8,5inch x 15cm/6inch x 10cm/4inch)

I am winner of the SURFACE DECORATION Calendar for the month of October 2022 with my “Comfort” Emotion Slipware Vases: a competition organized by ICAN (International Ceramic Artists Network)!!!

Winners announced for the
2022 ICAN Wall Calendars!

“The winners have been chosen! We had hundreds of submissions from our talented members, and this year’s entries were outstanding. All submissions were juried by the editorial staff from Ceramics Monthly and Pottery Making Illustrated. Please check out our winners below, and the calendars will be available soon! With an ICAN calendar on your wall, you can be inspired by this beautiful work every day.”* (*text from ICAN email).

The 2022 ICAN Wall Calendar Contest winners:

Surface Decoration

Johanna DeMaine, January + Cover

Jennifer Rosseter, February

Heidy Freyre, March

Hannah Graeper Carver, April

Kimberly Hilligoss, May

Lisa WB Walker, June

Susan Cohen Thompson, July

Patricia Griffin, August

Timothy Sullivan, September

Swanica Ligtenberg, October

Crain Art Studio, November

Mike Hamlin, December

Sculpture

Catharina Goldnau, January

Chanakarn Semachai, February

Jean Paull, March

Cristina Myrrha, April

Mari Emori, May + Cover

Jennifer Rosseter, June

Jen Pankratz, July

Nikki Renee Anderson, August

Liz de Beer, September

Tenyoh, October

Nancy Roberts, November

Louise Bell, December

Vase and Vessels

Sam Scott, January

Janet K Burner, February

Andrew Matheson, March

Bev Ellis, April

Marguerite Goff, May

Isak Isaksson, June

Terrie Lee Steinmeyer , July

Jan Schachter, August

Marcy Neiditz, September

Lauren Kearns, October

Genie Sue Weppner, November + Cover

Linda Hargrave, December

Last year February 2020, I participated in the “RISE 2020” ceramic residency in France organized and guided by Dr.Wendy Gers and Lauren Kearns: https://www.swanceramics.com/blog Look for March 22, 2020.
The research done during those weeks developed to the rediscovery of my love for colors and working with slips and free playful transformed forms.

I restricted myself to a vessel form with a long neck to challenge myself and still including my feature mark of burning Horsehair Raku. I called the vases: “Different views” because of the USA election time that year.

This evolved in “Emotion” Vases: bending the neck to the front or backward or around each other which resulted in beautiful expressions, even though there are no arms.

And all used with the new color slips engraving and sgrafitto technique.

Then I thought I could cut the vase and make legs and from one came the other expressed in certain dance positions: and my all old theme of “Life is a dance” what every body can still use now after so much confinement. So, “Let’s Dance”!!!!