black lab ceramics
functional beauty
how nineteen-year-old Ben culminated his love for animals and pottery
A current student at Ohio Wesleyan University, Ben’s ceramics journey began junior year of high school, when he signed up for a ceramics class at Solebury School in New Hope, PA. Prior to that he was mostly interested in photography and zoology- he had just completed an impressive internship in Namibia, South Africa with National Geographic, tracking animals in the wild.
Immediately he was drawn to “throwing”, the act of creating ceramics or pottery on a pottery wheel, finding it incredibly relaxing and therapeutic. He practiced for months after his high school art class ended, making bowls and mugs for family and friends as gifts.
Ben takes pride in creating something functional that people will actually use, maybe even daily.
“I like the idea of creating something that’s not going to sit on a shelf and collect dust.”
what’s in a name?
Inspired by an incredibly cute black lab named Patti, Black Lab Ceramics is named after Ben’s beloved service dog that he raised for over a year.
what’s it like raising and training a service dog as a high school student?
“I would wake up at 4am to take her outside before school,” Ben recalled.
She was there through it all- she accompanied him to ceramics class, sat beside him during late nights in the studio, and served as Ben’s prime model for his dog bowls.
Patti just passed her first Seeing Eye Dog test and sometimes comes for visits to Ben’s family home.
signatures
mugs
It takes Ben minutes to mold a mug. Sometimes he’s creating as many as 50 mugs per day, all from his parents garage.
“I throw in the garage whenever I get 2 hours to myself and I’m done with schoolwork. Sometimes I’m up until 3am throwing. It’s really easy to lose track of time. Sometimes I’m like oh, it was light out when I started and now it’s midnight.”
raku
One of Ben’s specialties- raku pieces spend only 1 hour in the kiln at extraordinarily high heat.
blue
Naturally drawn to blue color schemes and hues, many of Ben’s tried and true glazes are cool-toned.
“A lot of my product ships out west to California and different beach towns. I find my color palette to be very inspired by that and just a beachy cool vibe.”
poetry in motion
how ben gets in the zone
Lo-Fi or Indie Pop
Slow, mellow (even sad) music. You don’t want to get jittery on the wheel!
Poet Shane Koyczan
*featured left- Ben’s best selling Blue Lagoon glaze
from student to teacher
Ben’s first year of college looks a little different than he imagined amidst the Coronavirus pandemic.
He’s spending his spare time as a teacher assistant at his alma mater, teaching ceramics in the art studio where it all started.
He’s also using his high school’s kiln to fire all of his creations.
“It’s funny watching people get on the wheel for the first time because it’s a lot harder than it looks.
Some days you get on the wheel and you can’t do anything right, everything’s going down the drain. That happens maybe 10% of the time. 90% of the time you can focus on the work, focus on the clay and making new things. Disconnecting from the world and not dealing with social media or any other distractions.”
Follow @black.lab.ceramics for more Patti content and to stay up to date on new collections from Black Lab Ceramics.