{"title":"Ben Owen III - The Short List","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"genie-vase-in-chinese-blue","title":"Genie Vase in Chinese Blue","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eThe form is a miniature of Ben Owen III's classic genie bottle: a round body closed down to a straight narrow neck and a small flared collar. Bottles are among the harder things to make on a wheel. You raise a wide belly, then collar it slowly inward until the opening is narrower than your wrist, and past a certain point you are shaping it from the outside alone, with no hand inside to push against. Ben has called bottles some of his favorite pieces to throw. They are favorites because they are difficult.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eThe glaze is copper, fired to 2,250 degrees, where it reacts to the smoke and flame in the kiln. Chinese Blue was first developed at Jugtown Pottery in the 1930s. After Jacques Busbee died, his wife Juliana asked that it no longer be made, and the recipe was lost. It stayed with Ben Owen Sr., who spent years trying to get back to it and arrived at a recipe of his own. That version passed down through the family, and Ben Owen III still works in his.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eBottles were made for centuries to hold things. This one is 5.75 inches tall and holds almost nothing, which is rather the point. It goes on a bedside table, a kitchen windowsill, a shelf of small objects that mean something. It is also the least expensive signed piece by him we carry — a real way to give someone work by a potter whose pieces are in the Smithsonian.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eHand-signed by Ben Owen III, 2026. 3.75\"w x 5.75\"h.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ben Owen","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52839191183642,"sku":"03-BOGV-001","price":175.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0706\/2293\/7370\/files\/Ben_Owen_III_Genie_Bottle_1.webp?v=1790034033"},{"product_id":"egg-vase-in-chinese-blue-12-5","title":"Egg Vase in Chinese Blue, 12.5\"","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe glaze on this vase was gone for sixty years. Ben Owen Sr. developed Chinese Blue at Jugtown Pottery in the 1930s — copper mixtures fired to 2,250 degrees, arriving at a blue that moves between turquoise and oxblood depending on where the flame touched it. Production stopped in 1947 and the formula went with it. Owen rebuilt it from memory. His grandson still uses that recovered recipe.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eChinese Blue pieces are wood-fired and set at the center of the kiln, the hottest place in it, where the color comes up richest. Often it takes two firings to get there.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe form is just as old. An egg — full at the shoulder, drawn in at the neck, borrowed from early Chinese vases and thrown by three generations of Ben Owens in Seagrove, North Carolina. It is a shape that holds a single branch better than it holds a bouquet, and it does not need either one to earn the table it sits on.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe color develops differently in every firing. What you see in the photograph is the piece you'll receive. Signed by hand, 2026 firing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e6.5\"w x 12.5\"h.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ben Owen","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52918658924826,"sku":null,"price":575.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0706\/2293\/7370\/files\/927E5538-897E-4379-A763-69CB852F3472_1_201_a_1024x1024_2x_2.webp?v=1789951452"},{"product_id":"tang-vase-in-chinese-blue-12in","title":"Tang Vase in Chinese Blue, 12.5\"","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eThe two handles are what hold it together. They stand up in tight loops from the shoulder to just below the rim, and they carry dark maroon on both sides of the pot — so whichever face you turn out, the handles stay dark. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eThe glaze is copper, fired to 2,250 degrees, where it reacts to the smoke and flame in the kiln. Chinese Blue was first developed at Jugtown Pottery in the 1930s. After Jacques Busbee died, his wife Juliana asked that it no longer be made, and the recipe was lost. It stayed with Ben Owen Sr., who spent years trying to get back to it and arrived at a recipe of his own. That version passed down through the family, and Ben Owen III still works in his.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eAt 12.5 inches high, this is a piece with real presence — a console, an entry table, the end of a sideboard. It also asks you to make a decision most vases never do: which side faces the room. Live with it a while and you will probably turn it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eNo two pieces develop the same way. The photographs on this page are the vase that will arrive. Hand-signed by Ben Owen III, [2026]. 12.5\"h.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ben Owen","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52923872739610,"sku":null,"price":635.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0706\/2293\/7370\/files\/BenOwenIIITang2.webp?v=1790042653"},{"product_id":"handled-han-vase-in-chinese-blue-11in","title":"Handled Han Vase in Chinese Blue, 11.5\"","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eThe shape is two thousand years old. Broad through the shoulder, tapering to a small foot, opening into a flared trumpet neck with two small lugs where the handles would have been. It comes from Han dynasty hu jars. The pre-War Jugtown potters worked from early Chinese forms, and it entered the Owen family's catalog from there.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eThe glaze is copper, fired to 2,250 degrees, where it reacts to the smoke and flame of the kiln. Chinese Blue was first developed at Jugtown Pottery in the 1930s. After Jacques Busbee died, his wife Juliana asked that it no longer be made, and the recipe was lost. It stayed with Ben Owen Sr., who spent years trying to get back to it and arrived at a recipe of his own. That version passed down through the family, and Ben Owen III still works in his.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eTwo shallow lines circle the shoulder, cut into the wet clay on the wheel. They are the only decoration on the piece, and the glaze finds them — thinning over the ridges, pooling dark in the grooves. The mouth does something similar: red at the outer rim, a pale crust along the lip, clean turquoise dropping away inside.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eNo two pieces develop the same way. The photographs on this page are the vase that will arrive. Hand-signed by Ben Owen III, 2026.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e7.5\"w x 11.25\"h.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ben Owen","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52924267168026,"sku":null,"price":595.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0706\/2293\/7370\/files\/BenOwenHanIII_81d53770-a754-435d-ab25-48be0f9f8add.webp?v=1790028484"},{"product_id":"small-egg-vase-in-chinese-blue","title":"Small Aurora Egg Vase in Chinese Blue","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe glaze on this vase was gone for sixty years. Ben Owen Sr. developed Chinese Blue at Jugtown Pottery in the 1930s — copper mixtures fired to 2,250 degrees, arriving at a blue that moves between turquoise and oxblood depending on where the flame touched it. Production stopped in 1947 and the formula went with it. Owen rebuilt it from memory. His grandson still uses that recovered recipe.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eChinese Blue pieces are wood-fired and set at the center of the kiln, the hottest place in it, where the color comes up richest. Often it takes two firings to get there.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe form is just as old. An egg — full at the shoulder, drawn in at the neck, borrowed from early Chinese vases and thrown by three generations of Ben Owens in Seagrove, North Carolina. It is a shape that holds a single branch better than it holds a bouquet, and it does not need either one to earn the table it sits on.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe color develops differently in every firing. What you see in the photograph is the piece you'll receive. Signed by hand, 2026 firing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e4\"w x 6\"h.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ben Owen","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52925277405466,"sku":null,"price":150.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0706\/2293\/7370\/files\/BenOwensIIISmallEgg1.webp?v=1790043420"}],"url":"https:\/\/southern-crafted.com\/collections\/short-list-ben-owen-iii.oembed","provider":"Southern Crafted","version":"1.0","type":"link"}