Bols

Today I made more order in the studio- slowly edging towards starting production again- and came upon this gin bottle,much in need of a rinse. This is a shape I've had in my mind for almost as long as I can remember.At home in Welwyn Garden City there was a bottle like this in the little-used drinks cabinet; it was maybe one of the last bottles to be mass-produced in clay- marks on the body make it hard to tell if it was extruded or molded,but the shoulder and neck are thrown,and you can see where the inside of the neck was wiped with a Dutch finger while it was wet.It looks to me like a mild salt-glaze stoneware: I love the crisp print around the collar,the "kiss" on the neck from a neighbouring bottle in the kiln,and the relaxed finish of the base- very sabi. The reasons why we make the shapes we do are not always clear or simple: the cylindrical bottle I've been making for some 25 years started partly as a technical exercise to teach myself collaring (restricting the circumference of the pot),partly as a kiln-filler,partly as a shape for glaze tests- but that Bols bottle is also there as an influence.