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Show -- f "V I D' garmaDraimga A logical choice ?'v Eleanor needed pots for her plants jewelry and taking painting lessons from Shirley Aday at the Holiday By KATHY CHRISTENSEN : k " BOUNTIFUL U0gfft40 tt9f0m tji When Eleanor gets 0 pots finished, she fires up the electric kiln to approximately 2,350 degrees and watches carefully while they bake for about seven hours. Then hopefully, I open the kiln door to a whole bunch of beautiful pots, said Eleanor.,I very rarely lose a pot to cracking Im very careful. And it shows. The craftsmanship in Eleanors work has drawn her national attention. Eleanor has participated in shows locally and in Salt Lake, but said Utah clientel dont seem to appreciate her work as much as her buyers. Most of my customers are collectors and friends or acquaintances, she stated. I have pots in Hawaii. California, New Mexico, Washington, D.C. and Minnesota, where my daughter lives. Quite a track record for someone who has only been a potteress for bine years. I took night classes at View-mo15-2- niAldtMlMill ivtnit4lsit Win fjam tw4lm (turn ' tftm nii&l r Eleanor Irvine is a gourmet cook. But when shes in the basement simmering her wares at 2,000 plus degrees, you know shes not charring a casserole, but rather a batch of pottery. 'twft tlfpfjffllfrk out-of-sta- te nt High School with Dee Brown, said Eleanor concerning her learning pottery. I just got sick of airplanes and decided I wanted a new hobby. I got as far as 'I could get away from them I took up pottery. Eleanors husband is an controller, and they are both censed pilots. Besides that, they wn two planes, a power plane and air-traff- ic p glider. ' , k, a'v ' Pottery was a logical choice, she said. I needed pots for all my Im a gardener. plants Pots by Eleanor are displayed beautifully around her lavish garden and handsome backyard. Two dozen or so plants are growing from Eleanors original pots, hung from macrame along her back porch. Sitting on the porch in lounges with our feet on stools, she explained that she is retired and does strictly what she wants now. I had to stop my pottery for six years because of a serious illness. I just got back to it last year, she said. I do what I want to do, and when I get tired, I stop and rest. Some things she is picking up in her spare time include making A Gallery. I just started painting last Eleanor said. I knew it would help me with my pottery. Eleanor gets very artistic with her pottery designs. She decides on a specific theme in glazing design and shape for each of her pots. Its year, her rock-desig- pots which n Eleanor said will eventually make her famous. She sculpts and glazes on the side of a pot in the design of rocks. Other themes Eleanor has tried in the past include different types n of sculptured pots, grass-desig- brushing, and hieroglyphic brushing. Most recently Eleanor has been working with crystal glazing, a technique which is considered to be very difficult. Pottery is a lot of hard physical work and very expensive, Eleanor said. Most people dont realize everything that goes into a piece of pottery. Eleanor throws the clay for the pots on a part-manu- part-electr- ic wheel weighing somewhere around 300 pounds. You have to get the clay, soak it, wedge it, throw it, invert it, make the appendeges...Its very misleading. People see pottery being thrown on TV and think, how easy, but its not its hard. After the clay dries, Eleanor bakes the pottery in the kiln for 5 hours. She makes the glazes that color the pottery from scratch, applies them, then bakes the pots again for seven hours. The bigger they are, the more chance there is of losing them to an air pocket, flaw or crack. The largest pots Eleanor has ever made was a set of urns, two feet tall. The cost for the pair was $300. But she also has pots that cost as little as $3 . Her most recent display wOl be shown at the Mall Octoberfest, Sept. 4-- Five-Poin- ts 24-2- 6. Eleanor calls pottery a thankless business. Most people in Utah dont support or appreciate the arts, she said. I can make money from my pottery, but I usually dont. She and her husband are both from the Los Angeles area, and would possibly like to move there again when her husband retires. The Irvines have lived in Bountiful for 23 years now. They have three children and two grandchildren. Photos by Roger Tuttle Page design by Marty Lee XV a'" s Va44 a ' - , tt t - ' w V ( M s o O s k r ix. 1 I Sf I t 1 0 V.'", CP . .. , t; f P-- vi' 4.A m r - v |