Here are the latest Polish Pottery aquisitions! I found these mugs (6, only 5 shown) at the Homegoods store in Valencia, California on New Year's Eve 2008. They were on sale for $4 each and match the larger style mug that Jocelyn sent Dave for his birthday!We toured one of the Boleslawiecz (pronounced bowl luh swa vich) pottery factories this summer and watched the artists hand stamp and hand paint the designs on each piece. I asked how long it takes to train someone to do the patterns and was told '2-3 months'. If the piece is simply stamped it is not signed, but if the artist adds brushwork, then that artist signs the piece. The bisqueware is formed in molds, the clay is local, the glazes look similar to Duncan Cone 06 (that one would use in a 'paint your own' place here) but I'm pretty sure that the firing in Poland is to a higher temperature. The pieces are dunked in a clear glaze and the bottom 'foot' is wiped clean on a rolling band of astroturf (or something green that looks like astroturf), the fingerprint of the person dipping is wiped away with a flourish and the piece is loaded onto a cart, like a small rail car, that goes directly into the kiln.
