As many of my regular followers and readers know, I often name the vases I create and write a little story. Usually I pull from my knowledge of mythology or pop-culture to tell a tale that has the right piece for the raku pottery vase.
A few weeks ago, I wrote my first ‘Name that Vase’ post, and many of my readers participated in coming up with stories, poems and prose! I was excited by the response. So much so, I am doing another post just like it!
This particular vase has been known as ’89’, and it is time it had a name and a story!
That is where you come in! I am asking any of you talented writers, poets or dreamers who may be interested to ….
Name that Vase!
Create your own unique short story, poem, prose or a random thought!
Here is an example of what people came up with last time we played ‘Name that Vase’! You can also check out our page of vases, which mostly have stories.
So please comment below with your idea for a name for this vase, and an associated snippet of writing. The chosen idea(s) will be featured on both our blog and the page for the raku vases, with a link included to your website.
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The Ring. Or the Eye. Either works. I got so many LOTR vibes when I first saw this vase. It’s gorgeous!
Thank you for your kind words! You are speaking my language with referencing LOTR! I hope your week is off to an amazing start, and thank you for your post!
“Cat Star-Gate” (booming weird theatrical voice) No longer happy just being worshipped, Chairman Meow wants to be a god. C Meow takes over the studio and hires really, really smart cats and they build the “Cat Star-Gate”. C. Meow prepares for entry. Once last glance across his fuzzy shoulder and through the gate he goes…. Onto the floor. Shaking himself off nonchalantly, ensuring no one had seen. He looked to his pet human and said next week!
hahaha! You know I could imagine the Chairman doing exactly what you said he would. If only he had thumbs! You know, I am now going to have to try and take a picture of him going through that vase! I don’t think he will appreciate it, but you never know! Thanks for your awesome comment on my post and the laughter 😉 I hope you are having a great day!
Oh if you do I will share it with our feral and stray rescue group. Tell CM we have been saving quite a few good looking greys;)
CM will be happy to hear that you are saving his cat people! I will certainly do my best to get a picture of him with the vase!
“Dream Portal” – What will you see? Only your imagination knows. Dare to find out.
I love the reference to a portal and of course dreams! Thanks for your suggestion and I hope you are having a great week!
“Seraphic Journey” After journeying through the many redundant circles of life, the final and strongest circle isn’t a path at all: it is doorway to timelessness. The aging copper of life on Earth shrugging its dusty shawl allowing the blue heavens to break through. Where we become whole again…
Thank you for this great name, concept and story! I love the idea that our journey here is a doorway to timelessness, as time is a very human construct. I also love the idea expressed of becoming whole again, which I interpret as wholeness with what is around us.
I really LOVE your writing; it is very much in keeping with some things along the path of the esoteric that I am currently studying. Beautiful imagery!
How about the ‘Faerie’s Ring’?
It’s said that by looking through a holed stone (either natural or hand-bored) you might have the chance to spot a fairy. And they are always attracted to pretty things and people of an artistic nature.
I love this name and idea! I have been thinking of making some more vases like this with something in the middle, and you have me thinking of doing one with a faerie now! Thanks for sharing and inspiring, and I hope you are having an amazing week!
The Trans-Ætheric Express. It reminds me of the portals imagined by science fiction author Stephen Baxter in his MANIFOLD series.
Thanks for the name idea! I have not read those novels, but just googled them and I would now like to! So thank you for that 😉 Can you tell me more about the Trans-Ætheric Express, without giving too much of the story away?
I just made up the title, but the portals Baxter imagined were blue rings placed a vast distance apart. Go in one portal, and something that looks and sounds like you comes out the other portal. Whether It’s really “you” at the other end it a matter for philosophical speculation.
Now I want to read these books even more! Thanks for taking the time to tell me more about them and for your suggestion. I hope you are having a good week!
Yin Meets Yang. Love it. You do such good work!
Thank you for your suggestion and your kind words! I hope you are having a great week!
Very cool vase! I too like the name, “Portal”.
Thank you! It is a great suggestion!
I was thinking Star Gate, but that has been chosen So I think the ‘hollow world’. I’ve been doing astronomy paintings including Jupiter. I could see this as made of a metallic meteorite that has landed on Earth. The world it came from would be hollow and so would resonate with sound. Your vase would connect to it and ring with a resonate sound in the key of B minor…. But that’s me going all weird again….
I never really thought about Star Gate as a name until people here started suggesting it, and it became obvious 😉 Your astronomy paintings are beautiful! I do not think your idea is weird at all. I have thought about designing some pieces to try to incorporate sound and light, so maybe one day I will create a vase that resonates in a specific key – or seems to!
I suddenly thought of Barbara Hepworths sculptures. They can be hollow, sometimes with string or wire across them like harps or lyres
She has some incredible pieces of work!
😊 Yes
Missy’s working on it! I’ll let you know when she comes up with something!
I am excited to see what comes next! Hope you are well!
Me too b/c she’s just pacing around muttering right now! I am well, thanks for asking.
Very nice this something very unique I come across … keep it up dear , I’m Happy 😇
Thank you so much for your kind words! I hope you are well!
Yes I’m Happy 😇
Very beautiful. I can feel the love that went into making it just by looking at it. I’d name it Jackie. Or Steve. But I like Jackie more. Like Jackie O.
Thanks for your very kind words, it means a lot! I like Jackie O! I was joking with a friend the other day that Oprah should order a bunch of my vases like this piece so she can surround herself with O’s! I hope you are haing a great week!
Eternal – When I see a ring, I see a circular flow that has no beginning and no end. I absolutely love this piece, its beautiful!
Thank you for your suggestion and kind words. I do love the flow of the wheel these pieces capture! I hope you are having a great week!
My first thought was “Infinity Vase”
Thanks for your kind suggestion and I love that as a name for a vase 😉 Maybe I need to make an infinity symbold shaped vase!
wow that would be even more impressive!
I was thinking “Infinity” too. 🙂
With everyone saying infinity, I have pretty much convinced myself to make a vase in the shape of an infinity symbol 😉 I hope you are having a lovely weekend!
I am, thank you. All the same to you!
Thanks!
May I suggest “Nirvana”, the Buddha in the background gave me the idea, the vase represents the circle of lives you must go through before you achieve heaven.
That is a very beautiful name and I am very appreciative for your idea! Circles are pretty powerful symbols and that analogy works really well. I hope you have a great weekend!
What a stunning piece! My thought is – “Life’s Full Circle”.
Thank you for your kind words, and I love the name! I hope you have an amazing weekend!
Missy loves your work. Here is her name for this one. Again– no mythology proper, just a little story. 🙂
and… https://www.bigfoodetc.com/2019/02/06/what-are-the-odds/
I am not even sure where to begin to comment on this lovely piece of writing. I very much enjoyed reading MIssy’s name and interaction with Rocky! They both make me smile and feel like old familiar friends. The writing is spectacular and skilled! I am looking forward to hearing more about Missy’s novel too!
That vase that you have from Hungary is also spectacular and I think the coincidence of two similar unique shaped vases … well maybe I will let Rocky calculate those odds! I love the colour and shape! I am wondering if the tops of the vase have have any lids?
I LOVE the name idea and I am really excited and pleased that Missy came up with it. It suits the piece so well!
Thank you so much for participating, I am truly honoured that you would take the time to write something so perfect! I do love the name, though I am going to have to practice saying it!
I suggest “Nirvana” for the circle of many lives a Buddhist must fulfill before reaching heaven.
‘Ethel’ Such a ‘Nobel’ and timeless name. (Like this vase) Everyone should have an Ethel in their lives.
haha! I do like names that like that! I am going to keep Ethel in mind, as I am working on a group of vases for an upcoming show, and I think it may work with that! Thanks for your idea!
Such an Interesting and beautiful vase 😀👍
Thank you for your kind words! I hope you are having a great weekend!
I hope you have a great weekend too! 🙂
Thank you!
“Shimmering Lotus”
Oh sacred vessel
Tell us your divine secrets
Open core, full heart
Your words are very beautiful and I love the name suggestion! Thank you, and I hope you are having a great weekend!
Thank you. Your piece is really fantastic and I was glad to write (her) a haiku ode!
Thanks again! I really do appreciate it and hope you have a great day!
Same to you! If you like the haiku but want a slightly different name, I also thought a good variant might be “luminous lotus” 💚
Thank you! I am getting so much inspiration from everyone’s words for new pieces!
Faragh! Which means emptiness in Arabic.
Like the fabric of my thoughts
Like a big ballon swirling in the wind
Like a day moon forgotten in the sky
Like a Soul in a fishnet caught
Trying to break, trying to escape
And no one is there to hear it cry …
Wow! Your words have a powerful sadness in them that make them beautiful and relatable! Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful verse and I hope you have an amazing day!
The Gate Keeper. The perfect balance between the yin and the yang. The masculine and feminine. The one and all. It is whole and yet it is divided by one. The perfect equation, equated. God. Love. Life. Eternal. Holy matrimony. This is the truth of what I see.
Thank you so much for participating and sharing your beautiful words! I hope you are well and am so glad you stopped by!
You are very welcome. Beautiful piece.
Me too… thank you…
beautiful💚
Thank you so much for your kind words!
pleasure
Karma. What goes a-“round” comes a-“round”. The buddAh likeness reminded me of that full circle notion of karma
Your suggestion reminded me of a song 😉 Thanks for sharing your suggestion and I hope you are having a great week!
Such a creative way to engage with the audience.
The looking glass reflects only what we truly desire. We see what our soul truly inspires.
Thanks for your kind words!
I like what you wrote, often what people see reflects their own desires … or fears.
I hope your week is off to a great start.
The Ring of Truth. You dare not lie when in the presence of such divine beauty.
Synchronicity
Thank you for the suggestion!
What a gorgeous vase. The circle, the color, the delicacy and the strength of it. Great work!
Before I read the comments I was thinking Portal or something similar. I had thoughts of things such as fairy rings or something a wizard from ancient times would use to conjure a vision of the future or far away lands or worlds, within the centre of the vase.
It’s a lovely piece of art.
Thank you so much for your kind words! It does resemble a portal for sure! I love the idea of a wizard from ancient times. I hope your week is off to a great start!
I really LOVE this site and everything on it! The people who read your blog and perhaps buy the pottery are fantastic in spirit. I love the quality of responses, and that there are a lot of folks who are apparently involved with some of the things I also am studying and/or interested in related to our philosophies/interests. Well, I would likely call the pot “The Silent Eye” because it reminds me of a silent sort of eye (the eye of God or the Gods?), and also because I am studying a correspondence course that I LOVE out of England – The Silent Eye Mystery School with Sue Vincent, Stuart France and Steve Tanham. They go into many things in the course of the study – philosophies, psychology, archaeology, history, geography and other things from all over the world. Sacred geometry, Alchemy, and a lot of other similar interests are covered in posts and they have live events every so often where they perform some ancient pieces from literature, the current being from Sumeria – Gilgamesh.
I am 77, and an artist and writer. I particularly love Raku as I once took a course at a junior college and all summer I was the one who dipped the pots into whatever materials we were using – Eucalyptus leaves, nut shells, and I cannot remember what else, but I know I smelled like a giant cough drop all summer. But I am crazy about the art form. I love particularly the fact that there is ceremony connected with Raku in the Orient and also that it is one form, at least for a neophyte like me, where you do not have total control over what you are creating. There is something very exciting and appealing about that. So we could control our work up to a certain point when the pot would go into the buckets, but there was always that element of surprise, and that I loved.
My own blog is http://www.Allinadaysbreath.com, and my name is Anne Copeland. I am giving my name because if I push “like” on someone’s blog posts, it always comes up blank. I am managing not only my own blog, but one for my paraplegic friend, and somehow WordPress doesn’t seem to be able to deal with one person/two sites. Anyway, it is ok. So if a message comes up before I leave the site, I hope it will allow me to follow this site, but perhaps there is another way to subscribe. Thank you most kindly and I am excited to get to read all the fantastic posts by everyone else. I look forward to reading more posts and seeing more pottery and anything else that comes up here. All very good reading!
I really LOVE your comment and I am really pleased to be able to bring people together around something that is so dear to me, pottery! You are correct in that there are many interesting and wonderful people who come to visit my blog. I feel really blessed. It means a lot to me to be able to interact with people from all over, as I live out in the country in a very rural area here on Canada’s East Coast!
The correspondence course that you are studying sounds very fascinating. I love the fact that they are performing what must be ancient pieces of literature. That makes me smile that those words still live, even though the language is mostly forgotten and the words are ancient. This course sounds interesting and when I have time later I am going to look it up. Sacred geometry is a very interesting topic for me, and I want to explore it in some of my future pieces.
I am laughing at your description of smelling like a giant cough drop! For some reason I am picturing you with a shirt that says ‘Halls’ on it 😉 That sounds like an interesting choice of reduction materials. I do want to try some nut shells for a few pieces. I love the element of surprise in raku, and I love the fact that it is a process steeped in history. I am hoping to experiment with a few other historical firing techniques this summer!
I checked out your website for a little while, and that was enough for me to decide to visit later today when I have a bit more time. Thank you for such a great comment post and really interesting conversation. I am honoured.
I hope you have a beautiful and wonderful week ahead!
Thank you most kindly.
The Gardens. Why? A few years ago I was trick or treating with my son’s family in Forest Hills, Queens. There’s an area called the Forest Hills Gardens—an enclave of Tudor townhouses around a large park. Every house tries to outdo the others for decor and treats. My favorite was one of the simplest. A huge silhouette of a gong and a bare-chested who would strike the gong periodically. Major free association.
That is a neat memory and very unusual and unique! And would have probably been a refreshing site to see after all the neighbourhood rivalry. Thanks for sharing your idea! I hope you are having a great week!