Pat Young Ceramic Arts

The piece on the left has the impression of a Castor Bean leaf on it. At art shows I get excited comments from many middle aged people when they see my Castor Bean leaves. It reminds them of something they smoked when they were
much younger. It is part of one of the 7 different dinnerware sets in my collection. The colors are Jade and Green.

Cissis Leaf Dish

I spent seven years of my childhood living with my Grandmother, Pat Young, at her home based ceramic studio, Pat Young Ceramic Arts. Over the years, I worked there doing numerous tasks from washing glaze bottles and wedging clay to dusting shelves and giving studio tours to customers. I loved it when my grandmother let me use the satiny smooth clay to make a piece and glaze my own ceramic artwork. Little did I know then that I was training to one day take over my grandmother's studio and be the third generation owner of Pat Young Ceramic Arts.


	My grandmother developed the idea of imprinting the leaves from her yard into soft clay, then cutting along the outline of each leaf and hand shaping the pieces to the desired style. A chance encounter with an insurance salesman launched her business (to read the whole story, click here.) In 2004, Pat Young Ceramic Arts is celebrating its 50th anniversary.


	In Citrus County in central Florida there is a chain of lakes called Lake Tsala Apopka which is American Indian for "place to eat trout." Gospel Island is in the middle of one of the larger lakes. My grandparents built a house on that island in 1950 while the cowboys of the open range days were still driving small herds of cattle across their property. Eventually that house was completely taken over by the ceramic studio, which stayed in that location for 35 years. The picture above was taken there for a newspaper article in the early 1970's. The lady standing in the back is Pat Young, my grandmother and founder of the Pat Young Ceramic Arts studio. The other people are some of the artists she employed to help her fill orders for her creations.




	Three Magnolia Centerpiece


	There are over 60 separately modeled pieces that have been fused together in the kiln to make the Magnolia




		Magnolia Candleholder

Centerpiece. A dinner table is very impressive when 2 Magnolia Candleholders are placed beside it.


	Currently I make 130 designs in 18 colors, using no molds though I still use some of the leaf impressions made almost 50 years ago by my grandmother. All of the pieces are individually hand made; all modeled from actual plants and sculpted to look like leaf and flower arrangements that double as candleholders, plates, cups, bowls, butter dishes, vases or wall plaques. You have to hold a piece to feel how very light weight and delicate it is. Most of my round bowls ring like crystal goblets when thumped with a finger. I could play a song on them if they were tuned correctly.

Begonia Leaf Bowl

Begonia Leaf Console Set

The bowls in the Begonia Leaf style have each been modeled from 3 individual angle-wing begonia leaf impressions attached to a small base. The candleholder is made of 3 smaller leaves on a base. The difficult part of creating these pieces is to control the drying phase so that the shrinking stresses do not break them apart. The matt glaze color is Jade.

Begonia Leaf Candleholder


	I am always looking at the leaves of plants and trees for new ideas. Originally my Grandmother grew all of her leaves in her own greenhouses, but as the volume of orders increased she had to make a decision to either be a horticulturalist or a ceramist. Ceramics won. So when I design a new piece I take the best live leaf example I can find and make a master bisque impression, as she started doing when the greenhouse was phased out. From that bisque impression, I make a latex impression that is rolled into the clay. Real leaves fall apart after using them 2 or 3 times, latex lasts for hundreds of impressions. There is no way I can keep a large enough supply of live plants to fill all of our orders. Many of the master impressions I use now were made in the 1950's to 1980's.




		Lotus Dinnerware set


	The pieces of this dinnerware set are modeled with the impression of a Lotus Water Lily leaf. The colors are Cobalt Blue, Ruby Red, Emerald Green and Pansy Purple. This set also is made with a non-fluted edge. Another 14 pieces complete the full Lotus dinnerware collection.


	I use earthenware clay fired to 04 for bisque and 06 for glaze. We have always used commercially mixed glazes; I encounter enough challenges without making my own glazes! Over the years the glaze companies have dropped colors or changed formulas. In most cases we have been able to find another color that was very close to the original. I have one of the original color charts made of glazed ceramic geranium leaves that the early salesmen carried on their sales calls in the 1950's. Most of the colors I use match those old color samples. The current catalogue has a color chart showing all the glazes now being used.




		Dogwood Candleholder

	The Dogwood Candleholder is part of my flower collection and one of 6 different candleholder designs I make.



Oval Geranium Bowl




		Whirled Geranium Candleholder

	The Whirled Geranium Candleholder is made from 11 separate clay geranium leaf impressions. The color is Emerald Green.

This brightly glazed piece was modeled from 16 separate clay geranium leaf impressions attached to an oval base. The hard part of making this bowl is, as the leaves are attached, the first and last leaf have to overlap to the same degree as all of the other leaves. This bowl is part of a 7 bowl collection in which the different pieces range from 1" to 11" in diameter. The color of the glaze is...ahh...Yellow.


	An interesting story about glaze color...recently a long time customer asked me to replace some Cabbage Dinnerware pieces she had broken. (Actually she told me her "staff" had broken them). She had purchased the dinnerware set in the mid 1960's. She asked me if we still carried the Super White Satin glaze. I told her we did since the title and order number of the glaze has never changed. She ordered 15 pieces to be glazed in white. I sent the pieces to her and she sent them back because they did not match. It took almost a month of research but finally the glaze company told me their formula had never changed but the fired result was different because their raw materials were now being made with less impurities. GREAT! The glaze had lost it's satin look and is now really a stark white. So goes this business. This customer is now looking for matching pieces that she hopes to find on e-Bay. (Quite often I see PYCA pieces on e-Bay.) I wrote about my problems with the white glaze dilemma on ClayArt and Snail sent me part of a jar she had from years ago. Wasn't that nice of her?




	Castor Bean Platter

	The piece on the right is modeled from a Cissis leaf, locally called the "potato vine" because of the small potato looking fruit it grows as it attaches itself to a tall tree. The color is Rusty Amber.




	Pumpkin Leaf Dish with Geranium and Lotus Dip Dishes


	This piece is modeled from a pumpkin leaf with smaller geranium and lotus leaf pieces sitting on it. The combination of these 3 pieces can be used as a Chip and Dip or for salad and dressings. The color is Emerald Green.


	This is a large piece modeled after a Water Lily that was harvested from the lake that surrounded Gospel Island where the Pat Young studio was originally located. The 2 frogs are cast from a mold dated 1955. The color is Rusty Amber.




		Water Lily with 2 Frogs


	I use a total of 24 different leaf and flower species to make my ceramic art, plus molds of frogs, turtles and toads. The style designs not shown on this website are cabbage, fiddle fig, cineria, monstera, oak with acorns, maple, hibiscus tree and hibiscus flower, angle trumpet, rice leaf, catalpa, sycamore, holly and elephant ear. You can request a catalogue to see my complete line of 130 items. I make dinnerware sets, different sized platters, bowls of several shapes, cream and sugar sets, dip bowls plus chip and dip sets, vases, pen-cig-toothpick holders, napkin rings, flower wall plaques, candleholders and those frogs, turtles and toads that can show up on any of the above items.




	The picture of me at the top of this webpage was taken while I was apprenticing with my Aunt Barbara in 1996 when she ran the studio. That was 20 years after her mother, Pat Young had retired. I had just taken the first 3 Magnolia Centerpiece that I made by myself from the kiln. It was a great day for me!

	William Sheppard Pat Young Ceramic Arts 1901 Ohio Ave., N.E. St. Petersburg, Florida 33703-1759 phone: 727-527-8684 You can request a catalogue via email at patyoungceramicarts@hotmail.com

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	last updated November 6, 2003