Inspiration behind my cherry blossom pots
Spring is fast becoming my favorite season (sorry autumn). The days are getting longer, the sun is out, and best of all, flowers are slowly popping up to feed our pollinator friends.
A friend and I went to DC in March a couple years back. We're both from the Midwest where it was still cold and the earth still frozen. But in DC the cherry blossoms were blooming and daffodils had already emerged. Returning home to a chilly gray without those blooming flowers was tragic. I stared at my daffodils for days and days willing them to sprout. It felt like a cruel joke that they were thriving somewhere else, not too far away. And I was just over the pissy gray winter. My daffodils showed up a month later.
Cherry blossoms in DC
A few months back I stumbled across cherry blossom underglaze prints from SanBao Studios and Elan Transfers and instantly remembered that DC trip and the joy of seeing the cherry blossom trees and the fun time I had hanging out with my friend. We no longer live in the same state, not even the same country since she absconded to the warmer climes of Mexico, so no doubt there was a big pull of nostalgia there too.
I bought those transfers and decided right then to build a collection of pots around it. My approach to design is bolt-of inspiration, hands-on, go-with-the-flow. A more methodical person might describe me as chaotic or impulsive. Still, seeing those prints reminded me of this vague idea I’d had lurking in the back of my mind: a goth garden pots. I obviously love flowers and plants and was intrigued by a garden filled primarily with darker plants: Summer Wine Ninebark, black Sedum, and the deeper colors of petunias. Seeing the cherry blossom prints connected the nostaligic dots with this design idea: darker more dramatic colors but with pops of bright color. The flowers themselves would be the pop of color with the vases printed with the black cherry blossom designs.
I had hoped to figure out how to get the pink cherry blossom design on a black background. But alas, not everything turned out how I wanted it. Though the pink blossoms popped real well when applied to bisque and painted with a clear glaze, they burn out when affixed to a pot painted with black underglaze. As with all things ceramics, more experimenting is needed to find a technique to get the underglaze transfer to render the way I want.
But in the meantime, there are some lovely trinket dishes with cheery pink prints and vases with the bold black underglaze available to celebrate the beginning of spring.