I made my first cupcake stand for my niece's birthday, a small pink stand with stripes, with a red velvet on it. It gave the cupcake a stage. I have made many hundreds of them since. People put cupcakes on them, of course. Also a pear, a stack of cookies, a candle, or a ring at the end of the day. The stage is for whatever you want to set on it.
The form is more or less always the same: three sizes of different height, a wheel-thrown surface on a hand-built conical base, glazes mixed in the studio. What really changes is what happens on the surface, and I like to keep many directions open at once.
The Garden stands come from a small ceremony I like: a dot of colored clay pressed at the center of a pool of colored slip. The slip becomes petals, the dot becomes the heart of it. Each one is named for the flower it became. Other stands dress for occasions. A sky of planets down the cone for the Space stands. Lights strung around a tent for the Carousel and Big Top. The buttons of the coat for the Snowman. Each one is dressed for the part. The Rainbow stands keep nothing on top. A single unglazed dot of colored clay, a few carved stripes, the color running all the way through the clay instead of sitting in a skin of glaze. No costume. Just color, and the marks, and a surface you want to touch.
More in the journal.
A note on care:
Dishwasher safe, handwashing recomended. Full care notes here.
Where to find this work:
Match strikers are currently sold at A.MANO in Prospect Hights.
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