Posts from the ‘Rhonda Boehm’ Category

Aug 15

Rhonda Boehm Blossom Vase 1991

A recent find – a lovely, large stoneware blossom vase by Barossa Valley potter Rhonda Boehm, dated 1991.

This piece is typical of the style Rhonda became well known for – a carved sgraffito design of leaves and floral elements and a beautifully balanced thrown form.

The clay used was a whitish stoneware, to which Rhonda applied first a mushroom pink slip or oxide wash, followed by a blue grey slip.

The design was then carved trhough the blue grey slip to reveal the mushroom pink beneath.

Mar 7

Rhonda Boehm, Early Piece

I discovered this striking large piece by South Australian Potter Rhonda Boehm recently. It is signed Rhonda Longbottom (her married name, used early in career) indicating it was made in the early to mid 1970s when she had just begun her career as a potter in the Barossa Valley.

It is a substantial piece around 25cm tall x 15cm diameter. Inside it is glazed with a glossy black glaze, and the outside has been iron oxide decorated to accentuate the impressed design. The iron oxide would have been applied to the bisque fire pot, then wiped back, leaving it in the deeper parts creating this effect which was a prevalent look of Australian pottery in the 1970s into the 1980s. The large ridges down the outside appear to have been impressed with a thumb mark while the clay was still wet.

Rhonda Boehm, 1970s

Rhonda Boehm, 1970s – Signed Rhonda Longbottom

Nov 26

Rhonda Boehm, Barossa Valley, South Australia 1980s

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Rhonda Boehm, Barossa Valley, Australia

Rhonda Boehm, Barossa Valley, South Australia

From time to time I come across lovely stoneware fired pieces by local potter Rhonda Boehm.

Rhonda Boehm (b ? – d 2005) worked from a studio in the Barossa Valley, South Australia – and was most active during the 1980s.

Her work has a distinctive and honest quality to it – and is most often in muted mushroom pinks and bluish greys. Rhonda specialised in coloured clay slips and dry glazes over a carved whitish coloured clay body. Pieces were glazed on the inside with a clear glaze most often.

Some works have a botanical design, and others have precise and geometric patterns carved into the stoneware fired clay. There is something reminiscent of the hues of the Australian sunset and landscape in Rhonda’s use of colour and design.

The images below are pieces by Rhonda which have passed through my hands over the years.

The information quoted below is from the ever growing and hugely informative Australian Pottery >1960s Website and associated pages by Judith Pearce.

Rhonda Boehm ( -2005) owned a hairdressing salon in Nuriootpa, SA, before taking up pottery in the early 1970s under her married name, Rhonda Longbottom. She completed a ceramics course…. and set up a studio in the caretakers’ cottage of an old stone winery she renovated with her husband in Tanunda, SA. She also ran a successful gallery in the main building and was an active member of the Potters’ Guild of SA. In the mid-1980s, she divorced and began practicing under her maiden name. Work produced before her divorce is incised ‘Rhonda Longbottom’ or impressed ‘RL’ with the R inside the angle of the L. Work made after is impressed ‘RB’ with the R reversed. Some pieces may also have an impressed kangaroo. Others may be incised ‘Boehm’.