How Many Years Ago?

Back in 1993, my parents came up to see me graduate from Hampshire College. I was fortunate enough to be able to time my final thesis exhibit for their visit. Not an easy thing during the spring when everyone needs a place to show off their projects.

Trying to find a suitable gallery space in May in the Happy Valley can be downright impossible. Instead of a traditional gallery space with white walls and track lighting, I held my show in the Hampshire College greenhouse attached to the Cole Science Center. My red glazes never looked better!

So why am I sharing this old photo?

This month, Aurora and I took a drive to Vermont and then MA to the Happy Valley to look at schools. It is getting to be the time for Aurora to apply to schools. She had asked about visiting Hampshire while we were in town looking at Amherst College. After we finished the school tour and the info session, she and I walked the campus together after having lunch in the dining hall. She asked if she could sit in on a class in the science building, and arranged things with the professor so she could. We were about a half hour early for her class so we walked through the building. I figured why not show her what the greenhouse is like on a warm spring day. It must have been over 85F in there. And humid! Quite a shock from the chill 40F outside. As soon as Aurora saw the space she understood what it took to host this show in that space. Certainly not the usual space to host an exhibit.

Seeing that space again after all this time certainly brought back memories. It was quite possibly my most brief exhibition. By far it was the most humid! The attendance was incredible. Potters from all over came to show their support. As my first solo exhibition it marked a new point in my clay career.

Old Bowls, Old Friends

This porcelain bowl was made back when I was an undergraduate at UMASS/Amherst, and working on a series of copper red experiments. After struggling with firing copper red glazes in an old Alpine updraft kiln, I was invited to fire some pots in Michael Cohen's kiln. Some of my tests also were fired in Tom White's kiln. The hardest part was trying to get reproducible results. The Alpine updraft, while not a bad kiln, is certainly not what most people think of as a go-to kiln for great reduction glazes. Getting even reduction, and even temperature was a constant struggle. The upside to this was that is enabled me to visualize how things melted at different times, and how that contributed to the finished reduction surface. After graphing out 5 complete firings, every single pot in the kiln, where the glaze turned red, or blushed red, whether it was oxidized... all of that information was graphed out... I finally realized that early body reduction was critical for getting good reds. This bowl was fired in Mike Cohen's kiln (and dripped on one of his kiln shelves too). I love the long slow cooling that allowed the blue and red to separate and form delicate textures all over the bowl.

This old bowl was made about a year earlier, in Miami, when I was home for the summer. My friend Marc and I were trying to make pots together in a studio in Miami Shores. It was interesting seeing what we both liked and pushing each other to grow. When I look critically at this little bowl, I see that the glaze is too thin, the rim is sharp and harsh, the decoration on the inside of the bowl is boring. When I made it, I thought it was the bee's knees. I guess that is the nature of learning from our experiences. There is certainly nothing that makes this unusable as a bowl. If anything it informed all of the bowls that would follow it.

Seeing Red

In 1992, I started working on developing a copper red glaze that would work consistently in the Alpine updraft gas kiln that we all used at UMASS/Amherst. It had been recently rehabbed by Vince Pitelka, and the kiln was pretty tight. Unfortunately, being an updraft contributed to extremely uneven firings. It was very common to find the pots nearest the bagwall to be under-reduced, or sometimes even oxidized. These two bowls were ones that made it through the firings successfully. The upper image was made from a nice white stoneware I made based on a recipe from Chappell's book. The lower bowl was made from Angela Fina's porcelain recipe.

When I moved to Alfred in 1994, I assumed that I would be doing more copper red glazes. Instead I found myself drawn into ash-glazes and "fake ash" glazes. Something about the rivulet textures and the movement of color was very compelling. As a result, my copper red formulas stayed in the background for quite a while. I came across these bowls today as I was cleaning. Brought back very amusing memories of my first successful firing of an entire load of reds.

Thinkin' 'bout Tom

When Aurora was not quite three years old, she and I took a trip to Amherst for a college reunion. While we were in the area, we had to stop by and visit my friend, Tom White. A potter's potter, Tom makes the most amazing pots... simple, subtle but very strong. This little espresso cup was just the right size for Aurora's hands. As soon as Tom put it into Aurora's hands, she knew immediately that it was her's. She was so protective of it. No more plastic sippy cups for her.

While Tom and I visited a bit, Aurora made her way around the studio. Yes, we are still talking about a kid who wasn't three yet. Yeah, I know... who let's a toddler roam around a room full of sharp tools and clay and bone dry pots? Other potters, that's who.

Aurora found a box on the floor with a light just barely inside it. As she got closer she could hear chirping coming from inside the box. Turned out to be a box full of pheasant chicks. Tom has always been an avid hunter and leads hunts throughout the fall. Most years he raises quite a few pheasants. Tom reached into the box, and handed a tiny pheasant chick to Aurora. I just watched that kid melt. She was so happy. She may be twelve years older now, but she still remembers that day fondly.

This teabowl was my reward for helping Tom with one of his studio sales back when I was in college. Tom was throwing exclusively porcelain back then and creating some of the most stunning copper red glazes I had ever seen. I wanted to make reds like what Tom was able to achieve. He and I sat and talked about glaze ad nauseum when I was working with him. He added apple woodash to some of his glazes to get them to be more active. Amazing combinations of color and texture. To this day, I think his reds are some of my absolute favorite pots.

So why am I thinking about Tom today? I came across a postcard of a show he did in Northampton a few years back. It was such a surprise to me to see him making stoneware pots again. Just holding the postcard in my hand took me back to his studio, the woodfire going during all but the hottest months of summer. His house nestled in the woods. Dinner being offered some nights... and the always present wickedly seared meat. Having been a vegetarian for the previous three years, it took one week at Tom's before I succumbed to the smells of roasting venison (and elk steaks!). To this day, when I think of my favorite meals, quite of few of them happened while sitting around Tom's table, talking pots and grad school and potters. That is why Tom was on my mind this morning.