The constant experimenting we do at ThirstyCat Fountains is driven by two forces – our own desire to improve and find new beauty and functionality, and your requests for things we haven’t done before or to have things done differently.
Most people would probably be surprised how many features of our fountains and how we present them, and our website and what we have included there, were generated by comments and requests from customers.
As mentioned in a previous email our Enhanced Style of fountains was in part a result of many customers’ expressed needs and wants and our own desire for a better cat fountain. Likewise, the prominent display of each fountain’s cup capacity in each listing was a requested by customers, as was the weight, empty and filled for each listing. We simply hadn’t realized how important those specification were to people.
We have often been asked for a particular color or effect not produced by any of our current glazes. Because we make our glazes from raw minerals and colorants (which are also minerals), we are able to experiment and come up with a new color or even a new color family.
The two glazes below were the result of requests: The first for earthy tones with natural hues, the second for a purplish blue. We never know what we’ll get when we experiment like this – so many things can go wrong. But often enough the results are good and the time well spent in at arriving at them.
We were recently asked if we could create a Kintsugi effect. This is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer mixed with gold or silver. Instead of hiding the breaks, kintsugi celebrates the imperfections, making the repaired item more beautiful and unique.
So we began experimenting, which has resulted, so far, with what you see below. The image on the left shows the gold glaze that was applied to the cracks then fired to temperature. The image on the right shows the gold glaze that was waxed to prevent the over-glaze of Dawn from affecting it then fired to glaze temperature. Definitely potential here.
We fully expect that this collaboration, both inadvertent and quite intentional, will continue and we solicit sound suggestions and reasonable requests. If you want it and we can make it happen, it will be done. Here is a page specifically created for this purpose.
