Julie Crosby's newest woodfired pottery

Julie Crosby's latest woodfired pots are massive... both in scale and in presence. They are not delicate translucent porcelain. They command the space they occupy. Their scraped and woodfired suface only adds to their strong demeanor.

I am a sucker for Julie's work. After photographing her work for the last 3 years, I have watched her get into some of the most amazing shows, magazines and exhibitions. Last year she was at both the Smithsonian show and the Philly Museum show. On top of that, she had a piece appear in Ceramics Monthly. Makes me wonder when she'll have her first full article in CM.

Julie Crosby's latest woodfired pottery

I always get excited when Julie Crosby brings over new work to be photographed. Not only do I get to see these pots before they head off to an exhibition, or a gallery or show... but I get to handle them, figure out which "face" works best,... I get to know them (however briefly).

I have been photographing Julie's work now for over three years. When I look back at the first few sessions, I think about all the things I had no clue about, and it makes me wonder how I will look back on the work I am doing now. Probably much the same way I felt about my clay work... the next firing is always the best firing.

Back to Julie:   In addition to making great woodfired pots, Julie is also an amazing kiln builder. This winter she was building a kiln on Whidbey Island, near Seattle, WA. I know most folks would think that building a kiln in the cold wet climes of the Pacific NW in the winter would be a horrible gig, but you haven't lived in Upstate NY. 50 degrees and wet is balmy compared to February in our little pocket of frozen hell.

I wish I had images of her kiln building to show off. Heck, for that matter, I wish I could go around to photograph some of the kilns she has built all over the country. For potters, seeing a finished kiln is nice, but seeing one being built is often more helpful. You can see the inner workings and the plan unfolds slowly, brick by brick. A little part of me is hoping that Julie will be able to add her kiln building expertise to her website in the coming years.

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. 

Dirty Work, with Pots Ablaze

The hard work of cleaning up from a woodfiring has to be one of the worst, most thankless jobs in ceramics. Nothing like handling sharp hot shelves, heavy brick, all covered in ash and fused bits of glaze. With dust masks on, gloved hands and eye protection, the work is slow going and SWEATY! Doing this in the Spring or Fall makes sense. And yet, so many potters fire their woodkilns in the heat of summer.



And the reason why: because when those pots come out, you quickly forget about having stood next to a kiln at two thousand plus degrees in 90F heat... all you think about is how cool the pots look.



As the kiln is slowly unloaded, shelves and bricks stacked, and pots sorted... it is time to clean off glaze drips and fused pots. Time to smooth out rough spots on the kiln shelves. Time to true up the ends of the kiln posts. Time to sweep up all the wads from off the bottoms of all the pots.



And lastly: To drink in the great pots. To bask in the glow of pots made miraculous by the wicked tongue of fire that coursed through the kiln for a day and a half. To see exactly where some pots got too close to the fire and distorted out of round. To see the smooth drips where the ash pooled and ran down the side. But most of all, to share with the other potters the awesomeness of firing with wood.

Woodfired Pots: Flashing, Ash, and WOW!

There is something very special about being asked to photograph the best pots from a potter's woodfired kiln. You know, right off the bat, that these pots have been through hell. And these, of all of them, are the ones special enough to make the cut.

These woodfired pots are more of Cary Joseph's work that I photographed at the end of May. These were fired in Julie Crosby's wood kiln. Much of the kiln had great flashing with not a ton of drippy ash to muddle the clean throwing style that Cary favors.



In many instances, I am only the second person (after the potter who unloaded the kiln,) to have ever held these pots. That is a sensational experience. To be able to run my hands over the rough surface, the ash slickened drips down the side of the pot, to feel the silkiness of the glaze inside... all transform this ball of fired clay into something magical. I always feel privileged to be asked to photograph pottery, especially when my friends are such great potters!