Mike Dodd

Had a lovely reply from Mike Dodd:

Hi David,
Yes, this is a very early bowl made at my first pottery at Jacobs Cottage (1967-71). There is a similar bowl photographed on page 31 of my book ‘An Autobiography of Sorts’. It’s nice to see that it has survived around 50 years so far,
My best,
Mike

Stoneware lidded pot - 11cm tall.
Looks like another Mike Dodd piece I had a while back.
It’s marked and came with a label - but the mark isn’t entirely clear and I just wanted to check it really was his work.
Thank you. Also, brownish glaze- would this be an ash glaze ?

Thanks

Ben Dodd. Mike's son?

Mike often glazed over his marks and when he had exhibitions with me he would put sticky labels with his signature signed in pen on the bottom.

I don't have anything to hand put from memory the labels looks to have been written by Mike.

Of all the major potters Mike Dodd is the most notorious for glaze inclusions on his mark. Definitely looks right.

NaomiM wrote:I’m seeing Mike Dodd’s MD stamp.  

The MJD stamp is clearly there, if you known what you are looking at.

I wanted to check out this bowl before listing it as Mike Dodd on eBay.
Mum would have bought it in a gallery or from the potter and it’s her Mike Dodd label.
Studio Pots - She may have bought it from the Harlequin Gallery as she bought a fair few pots there.
Mark is a bit filled in but I can see a bit of the curve on the M. Glaze and form seem to fit.
Am I good to go?

It certainly looks like Mike Dodd to me. Had a similar one with that decoration. Tho Mike Dodd doesn't seem to be selling as well as he used to.

Thank you. Was that a doesn’t seem to be selling so well?

Yes

It might have come from the Harlequin.

Because he often filled his seal mark with glaze over the years, I did ask him to sign a sticky label and apply them inside the foot ring on pieces with obscured marks when he supplied such pieces for solo exhibitions with me. This he did and did continue to do it when displaying elsewhere when he remembered!

However, I can confirm that the label with "Mike Dodd" on it was written and put on by him i.e. it is his signature.

The label was written by my mum Eva Williams. I think she removed all prices and labels when she bought things but in her later years she began to write labels on pots herself as she found it harder to remember which pot was by which potter.
Eva was a potter in the adult education class in Haimo, Eltham. She used to love coming in the Harlequin.

I was going to ask and I do remember her. You obviously would know your mother's writing better than me but it  very much like Mike's writing.

I will see if I can find an image of one of Mike's labels and, if so, I will add it to the Mike Dodd thread.

Mike Dodd at 75 in 2018. Video pf his Goldmark exhibition.

Yunomi, green glaze, incised, Mike Dodd?
I’m just checking my mum was right with this one. The mark seems glazed in.
I’ve seen very similar shapes and glazing on the Goldmarkart site for Mike Dodd’s yunomis .
I’m hoping someone who’s handled more of his stuff than me would be a bit more certain.

Mike had a tenancy to often completely glaze over his impressed seal and when he had exhibits with me in Greenwich I asked him to stick labels with his signature on the bottom like this. This he did and continued to do elsewhere for a while at least.

So it looks like a Mike Dodd yunomi with a label.

Thanks Studio,
I’m glad you think it is Mike Dodd. It’s very likely Eva bought it from one of your selling exhibitions- but the label is one of hers. She seems to have been pretty good at labelling her pots correctly. She only started later in life when she started getting a lot and it got confusing. I’m going to start now!

I suspect that it came from one of Mike's Harlequin Gallery exhibitions but it could also have been "before my time" when Trevor Coldrey ran the gallery.

I think that the bottom line is that Mike really spent a great deal of time collecting rocks and silt to make and experiment with glazes and I can't imagine anyone else being able to achieve that glaze mix.

I’m getting confused with names and places already. Oh dear. You’re probably right - mum bought a good few pieces from the Harlequin.
And the glazing range of colours on the yunomi is pretty distinctive.

Trevor Coldrey started the Harlequin Gallery in Greenwich in 1991 and his first exhibition was of Mike Dodd's pots. He closed the gallery for much of 1998 and then I took over at the beginning of 1999 in Greenwich and ran the gallery there for 10 years, with Trevor as my landlord. Your mother was a customer from the beginning and, if you like, came to me with the gallery.

Thanks for inheriting my mum. She loved coming in and buying the odd piece.