Dogtooth Dogbowl Concept & Cuerda Seca
A few years ago, I followed a Turkish (maybe Persian? Iraqi? Don’t remember) ceramic artist who made & painted functional ware, and the end result was a design where each part of the design had a subtle relief to it, and I love the texture and bright color and the process of that technique—the glaze is squeezed & pools into the design and ends where it is drawn. For whatever reason, I must have unfollowed her, because I have been stressing myself out for days trying to find her or whatever this glazing technique is called.
After scouring though hundreds of pictures & reverse image searching a plate I took a picture of two years ago and shoving in key words I found someone selling a plate which used the technique I was looking for:
“Cuerda seca” - Spanish for dry rope, refering to the black wax which prevents pooling glaze overlapping lines, which allows a large amount of glaze, creating a raised surface from the line, though not all examples of this technique use enough glaze for it to be textured like the picture on the left—acquired here—but as far as I’m interested in it, I’ll want it to look like that.
I’m not sure if this is a popular technique, at least in English-speaking circles, though I’ve seen it a lot in Mexican garden stores and thrift stores in Louisiana, as well as proper ceramics/interior design stores in Milan. I’d be lying if I said I’d like to spread this technique to English speakers, I’d hate to see this technique be as oversaturated as something like donut vases/kintsugi are in ceramics. In Spain, it seems this technique is something of a kid’s activity or easy adult craft, and it’s easy to see why, but even though it may seem kitschy but I like it for that and I’d like to gatekeep it as much as possible whilst also showing my process making it.
I also found this image on Instagram, though initially posted on reddit, of two matching puzzles with two different gradients. This is how I’d like to use the cuerda seca technique, though it may be difficult to make a subtle gradient like that using glazes because you’d have to mix the exact amount of glaze each time—additionally this technique usually uses Stroke and Coat Mayco glazes, which I love but seem to be incredibly expensive in the UK (at least on Amazon), so I’ll have to see if a local store or the workshop has them. I’m sure there’s a name for those kind of pre-mixed colored glazes that come out shiny rather than matte (like underglaze) but I don’t know what they’re called if they have a name.
Keeping in line with the kitschy aesthetic of the technique and puzzle gradient, I want to translate the technique of the former and the colors of the latter into a dogtooth pattern (which is apparently called houndstooth, but I refuse to change what I call it now.)
In my mind, dogtooth is akin to the “cheugy” aesthetic of chevron patterns—widely spread and maybe indicating common/poor taste, though based on this picture it’s not quite at that level, at least not to the Royals, but it still looks a tad goofy to me in a good way.
It may seem a bit ironic that one of the problems I’m trying to address in my work is ugly animal products (like dog toys, bowls, etc.) yet I’m choosing items that are by my own recognition cheesy/kitschy but by no means do I think they’re tasteless. I think their kitschyness is part of their genuine appeal as much as something like Vanessa Stockard’s kitty paintings. Additionally, for this design, the pattern (at least its name) directly relates to its use.
And I am making a dog bowl—probably the first thing you’d imagine if I said “I make designs for pets”. I don’t do this to be uncreative in object choice—I do it just for that reason. Dog bowls, like most other mass produced objects for pets/animals are very ugly, and not even Etsy is an exception as the majority of them are just personalized for their dog’s name rather than an original design—like the one I’ve drawn up on the right.
Is the design practical? Well, there’s two things I’m worried about—sharp edges and hard-to-reach corners. The latter I’m not really concerned about—I’m just addressing it to say that of course a dog can reach the crannies because they already design bowls specifically to make it hard (though not impossible—I doubt this design would make it so) to access the food so they don’t overeat, As for the corners, I can’t imagine many scenarios where a dog would hurt themselves with it—maybe their nose bumping a corner—but obviously I’d sponge the edges very smoothly. A big dog/excitable medium dog might pick it up and break the edges if they drop it, but for a dog like mine they’d use it like normal. As for cleaning, I’m going to smooth out the inside of the bowl by smushing strips of clay into where the sides meet.
Ultimately I don’t think the unique shape will make it less functional, and I'm not sure why the only shape I’ve ever seen dog bowls have been circles/rounded squares. Really, this is like a doggie bento box—and it’s been trendy lately to feed dogs multiple raw items, so instead of two dogteeth it could be four or six in one big dogtooth.
I hope the design is obvious—it’s two segments/water & food bowls of the pattern inside two of them fused together to hold them. Yet another dogtooth pattern will be designed on the inside & outside (just not the bottom) of each part, so a bit of room (1-2cm should be in between everything so the glaze isn’t touching and easier to take out the holder.
