Purple-Black Storm (9298B)

Purple-Black Storm, (9298B), 16" diameter, fired to cone 8 over three days and cooled for two days.

It is amazing seeing these platters again. The level of detail in the closeup images just blows my mind. I wish I had enough wall space to show them all off, all the time! They really need to be seen, with good light, at eye level, to really appreciate them.

A Pale River - 9298H

A Pale River - 9298H 

It's hard to describe the feathery crystals that create the movement along the edge where these two glazes meet. Like the shoreline at high tide, with the waves pulling back... the shore gives some and takes some. In this case, the glaze changes with every layering interaction.

Mossy Green - 9998C

9998C, Mossy Green, 1998

When this platter first emerged from the firing, after cooling for four days, the fluid glaze I had expected to find a rich glossy red... had cooled to this lovely matte green. The rivulets and crystals had had so much extra time to cool and coalesce. Just enough of the glaze had overlapped the edge of the rim of the platter, pulling the black slip and drawing the cobalt and chrome and copper into the very edge of the main glaze... giving it an almost blue fade.

Unexpected, most definitely, but certainly not unwelcome.

Untitled - 11298A

11298A - Untitled

 This platter turned out so differently from what I expected. To this day, I still dont really understand how the white under the pink/purple/red came into being. My original design had this turning out matte orange, with a pale blue green underneath it. I think the three day firing and crash cooling may have had something to do with the results.

If you can come up with a groovy name for this platter, I want to hear it!

Nailing Jello to the Wall - 11799B

Nailing Jello to the Wall, 11799B, 1999

This platter was glazed on one of those nights where I was definitely burning the candle at both ends. Never mind that my ex-wife and I were fighting non-stop... so being home wasn't worth being there for... and never mind the strife in the studio.... I just kept right on glazing. Sometimes I would glaze for two to three days, non-stop. Would load one kiln and get it rolling after days of glazing, and completely forget what I had put into the kiln. Then I would resort to my glaze notebooks which looked like sick mixed with coffee stains (I dont drink coffee)....covered in dry glaze powder. And I wonder why some of my glaze ideas turned out completely backwards. Yeah... I was my own worst enemy as I worked on these platters. Once in while, they resulted in some fantastic colors and textures... other times, not so much. Of the dozen platters that went into this firing, only two survived and of those, only this one made it to NY.

Many Worlds In One - 22698C

Many Worlds In One, 22698C, 1998. 

This platter came out of the second firing I ever did with this series. I had only thrown 4 disks/platters. Everything else in the firing was handbuilt, almost like square or rectangular trays. I don't have many images of the rectangular pieces. I may have to spend some time this coming month trying to get new images made of them. It is exciting seeing the earliest pieces, because the ideas were so fresh. Nothing had become expected. Each platter was such a new experiment. The uncertainty bordered on insanity. The loss rates exceeded 90%. But, there was such a phenomenal learning curve happening that it was heady. Each successful platter gave birth to ten more of which one of two might survive.

Ancient History (22698D)

Ancient History, 22698D, 1998. 

This platter gave rise to dozens of other platters. Ideas that came from this one piece in the end, directed the direction of so many others. The chrome red crackle glaze appeared only a few times. The glowing pale white with the darker blue lines never appeared again. Still not sure why. Guess in some ways, these glazes are still such a mystery.

New Woodfired Pots from Cary Joseph and Julie Crosby

Woodfired vase, by Cary Joseph.  

Woodfired nesting mixing bowls, by Julie Crosby

I can't remember when I met Cary Joseph or Julie Crosby. Ithaca has always had more than its fair share of potters... but when these two turned Ithaca into a hub of woodfiring fun, it changed everything. When I went to grad school at Utah State, my intention was to fire primarily with wood. After firing only a few kiln loads of pots, I realized that I was too impatient for 2-3 firings a year. Most wood kilns are huge. I needed a faster turn around. The solution is to have multiple people firing in eachother's kilns. Saves on time, labor, cleaning, woodsplitting, etc. Certainly creates a solid community. Cary typically fires with quite a few other potters, both in Corning NY as well as Ithaca and occasionally farther afield. Julie's kiln outside of Ithaca gets fired quite a few times a year, and sees participation from quite a few potters from the Ithaca area, as well as folks from Corning. 

One of the challenges of photographing woodfired work in general is that colors tend to the more subtle end of the spectrum. What I love about Cary and Julie's work is that it constantly challenges that generalization. Cary's work continues to explore the richness of surface texture... both from the texture of the coarse clay and from the distribution of fly ash and flashing from the firing. Julie's glaze palette allows her to have food safe surfaces on the interior of her forms, while allowing the wood ash and flashing to wash over her scraped textured exteriors of her pots. 

This weekend both potters are participating in the Philadelphia Museum's Craft Show. Stop on down and see their latest work and many more fine craftsmen. I wish Nancy, Aurora and I could be heading down to join them. It's been too many years since we were last there. 

Much Too Much - 23098A

Much Too Much - 23098A, 1998, fired to cone 8 over 2 days, and cooled for two days.

Meaningless Stripes - 23098C

Meaningless Stripes - 23098C, 1998, available for purchase