Blue Mountain Green and Turquoise Console Bowl | Vintage Canadian shops Pottery

Blue Mountain Green Console Bowl
This console bowl from Blue Mountain Pottery, who made pottery out of Ontario, Canada from 1953 to 2004, is a stunning and unique example of their signature two color glaze drive effect.

Dimensions: 13" X 7" X 2"
Condition: Great vintage used shape

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Blue Mountain Pottery opened shop in 1953 in Collingwood, Ontario, Canada by a group of local potterers. Their signature aesthetic was their signature glaze where they took two different colored glazes, generally a light one and a dark one, and allowed them to run during the firing process, creating unique streaks as the colors would intermix. The glaze they used was a special proprietary formula that at 1840 degrees fahrenheit would mold together to produce a high gloss glaze.

Wikipedia (and virtually every site that is basically copy and pasting Wikipedia) says this technique was a "unique, trademarked process" known as 'reflowing decorating'". I have so many problems with that statement, where do I start? First, "trademarked". As far as I can tell, BMP didn't even trademark "Blue Mountain Pottery", let alone the name of their glazing process. If they had trademarked the name of their glazing process, why isn't it written as "Reflowing Decorating(tm)".

And let's talk about "reflowing decorating". I'm not sure that's even grammatically correct. Wikipedia does not source a citation, and I can find no credible source that backs this up. I have found many sites that quote Wikipedia (and its errors) verbatim, but nothing to corroborate this "trademarked" technique. My hunch is someone rather hastily wrote the Wikipedia description with no one questioning these details, and shops in fact repeating the poor description over and over and over.

But enough about Wikipedia! This is a stunning combination of green and turquoise. You can see the where the glazes ran together to create the beautiful colors you see. I'm uncertain if the dark green, almost black, base was an actual third glaze or a second with the blues and greens being from shades of a single glaze. The flowing rivers of glaze along with the shape of the bowl itself evoke the organic or biomorophic shapes that were popular in the mid-century. I've not seen a lot of BMP pieces like this, and frankly, I'm so tempted to keep it. So if it sells it sells and if it doesn't, decision was made for me.

This Blue Mountain Green and Turquoise Console Bowl measures 13" across, 7" wide and 2" tall. It's in great vintage used shape. The sticker on the base is rather faded from washing, I presume, but you can still make everything out