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Business & Tech

Elevating Cereal Eating, a Handmade Bowl at a Time

Port Washington potter Patricia Bridges sees beauty in functional objects.

Introducing a first in a series of local artisans who are featured on Etsy,  the online marketplace with its "Buy, Sell and Live Handmade" tag line. Launched in 2005, Etsy  has an estimated 400,000 crafters worldwide selling $180 million in handmade goods.

Right around the time most of America is putting morning cereal bowls in the sink, Port Washington-based ceramicist Patricia Bridges is surveying a crop of bowls, fresh from her potter's wheel.

Many children play with clay. Bridges never stopped. After falling in love with pottery in childhood, Bridges studied ceramics in college, later apprenticing with master potters, honing her craft.

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After a decade-long detour in film and then time in PR and marketing, most notably for Reuters, Bridges now turns out a limited collection of original pieces every year, still using the wheel she bought in 1977 as a teen in rural New Hampshire.

"I don't do sculpture," said Bridges. "Just about everything I make has a function."

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Bowls, coffee mugs, platters, dishes and vases all feature in Bridges' work, which she characterizes as "functional kitchen to table ware."

Bridges' wares may be utilitarian, but don't be fooled by their purposefulness; each is a small jewel of craftsmanship. Glazes are mixed by hand; pieces are often trimmed with custom cut beads, handles or lugs (a flattened knob attached to pottery). Repurposing old credit cards, Bridges even creates her own extruders — devices through which clay is piped to create a particular shape.  She cuts the plastic, forming her own signature shape for the extruded clay.

As a result, each piece is snowflake-singular, marked by subtle, almost imperceptible differences, the hallmark of a handcrafted product. "It's like cookies," Bridges said. "Everyone has a sugar cookie recipe and yours might be a little different than mine."

Bridges believes that this singularity, in a mass-produced world, attracts buyers to her work. "It's almost like a special treat to have something that is one of a kind even if it's produced ten times again as I might with a cereal bowl," Bridges said.

Repeat customer Julian Saary-Littman often buys Bridges' work as holiday and end-of-the-year teacher gifts, and sometimes has trouble parting with them. "Every time I buy something to give away, it's so hard," said Saary-Littman. "It sits on my counter, adding so much beauty and style, it's hard to see it go."

Pottery, Barn

Bridges grew up in rural New Hampshire where her family raised sheep and chickens.  Her father was a psychiatrist by training and a blacksmith by avocation. He encouraged her creative pursuits and was a role model for the pleasure of working with one's hands.  

"I like that it's tactile," said Bridges when asked what drew her to clay. "I can't draw and I can't paint, so it's pottery." 

Bridges' work space is no longer a small farm but suburban Port Washington. She has converted her garage into a seasonal studio space; in the colder months, she uses the studio and kilns at Haven Art.

As one of Haven's resident artists and pottery instructors, Bridges is a familiar presence in the studio and can usually be found working at the wheel, her trademark bandana protecting her fiery red hair from the inescapable clay dust.

Pottery making is a dusty exercise in patience. The evolution from ball of clay to finished bowl takes roughly two weeks. After a piece is thrown—shaped on the wheel—it needs to dry for a week, before being trimmed and fired for the first time.  Next, the object is glazed and fired again. Readying the kiln is time-intensive; a six-hour lead time is required for heating, it then takes twelve hours to cool.

Given the hours devoted to fabricating each piece, shoppers might expect a big ticket price tag. But Bridges tries to stick to moderate price points.

"Most of the work is priced on the low side, it's not priced like an art gallery," said Bridges. 

Pottery devotee Julie Harnick agrees. "I love homemade pottery," said Harnick, who owns nearly a dozen of Bridges' pieces. "It's artisan work, but it's not an artisan's price."

Items range from $25 for a cereal bowl to $150 for a large vase. Best selling items are the serving bowls, which range from $60 to $75.

Saying her work is "meant to be used," Bridges eschews the daintiness of for-company-only china. "I don't want to make stuff that someone is going to be afraid to use," Bridges noted.

"My coffee mugs can go in the dishwasher. They're not so fine that you'll be afraid to use them.  It's not like your grandmother's china; that sits in the closet; that you'll never pick it up."

Bridges groups items in families, primarily by glaze color. Collections include "Verde" which wears the soft green patina of copper verdigrised by saltwater and sun. "Cobalt" is the electric blue of a Mediterranean sea; "Earth" is defined by rich, lustrous brown and sand tones. Other collections include "Autumn," "Northern Blues" and "Honeycomb," distinguished not by color, but by its interlocking "honeycombed" rim.

Bridges keeps her work fresh by adding new pieces periodically and experimenting with glazes. Favorite pieces to make are sets of nested bowls. "They are a little more challenging to make because they have to be just so to fit within each other," said Bridges.

She is equally discriminating about texture and tactility. "We test everything at home. We were using a particular mug and we decided we just didn't like it because of the way it felt on my finger."

Bridges also discontinued a series of bowls when she noticed they didn't stack properly and abandoned a particular glaze after road-testing it at home. "The glaze had a certain texture in these bowls, and when you took spoons, it made an awful scraping sound."

Quality control, one cereal bowl at a time.

Bridges' work is available at Haven Art, Etsy and through her web site www.bridgespottery.com. She also holds two annual trunk shows in November and May.


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