For the Love of Art Nouveau...
I love the excessively floral and sinuous designs of the Art Nouveau period. The languid gaze of the Art Nouveau women beg to be reproduced in clay. The nouveau design is much more forgiving to free hand "drawing" on clay than the more rigid lines of Art Deco and, in some cases, Arts & Crafts. It's strange, Art Nouveau is by far my favorite style of pottery, but I'm at a complete loss at what to say about it. It just is. I guess I can attribute my love of Art Nouveau to my "more is more" philosophy - there is no such thing as a plain pot in my studio. I'm incapable of it :-) I look at a newly thrown pot as a base, a starting point only. Many potters like simple lines in pottery and prefer for the glaze to tell the story. I'm more about the form and the glaze is secondary.