“Moonpots” are my variation on the 1000-year-old Yixing tradition of making lidded teapots. The Jiangsu region of China boasts a unique purple sand clay which the artisans use to produce beautifully hued ware, but it’s the method and precision of the construction of the pots which first grabbed my attention.
The lid is carefully constructed and the opening is cut to fit the lid.
A very satisfying step is to cut the opening to the lid.
Using a pottery compass, the pot’s parts are cut from of a slab of rolled clay and then the walls are paddled to roundness, sealed and then flipped over. The method results in a “balloon” of clay in which the trapped air acts to pressurize the walls so that the vessel can be shaped and manipulated. Once the clay sets up to leather hardness, the pot openings are cut open for the flanged lid and a spout, handle, and finial are attached.
A young friend of mine passed away and her family approached me with a request to make some sort of keepsake vessel for their mom. This lidded pot design seemed a fitting tribute to my friend who was a huge fan of Japanese culture (she spoke fluent Japanese and was an English teacher to students in Japan). Lastly, I created a special glaze which incorporated my friend’s ashes into the pot’s glassy finish. I hope she would have liked this very much.
Do you need a special moonpot vessel to celebrate the life of a loved one or beloved pet? You can always contact me to talk about the kind of urn you might need.
In 2022, I wrote about beginning to make my own pottery glazes from raw materials. Commercial bottled glazes were convenient, but expensive, and I had an itch to develop something more personal. Over five years of experimentation, I’ve come to understand the qualities I’m after…
I’ve been having a lot of fun with the sigil series lately. I especially enjoy making them in rhythm with the seasons—letting each one echo the mood of the turning year.
Lughnasadh is a time of harvest, of gathering what’s grown, and of giving thanks for all that has carried us this far.
Why do I sculpt so many eyes into my work? It’s a question I get asked a lot—sometimes nervously. The answer has more to do with protection, presence, and ancient symbolism than you might expect...
When I made this piece, I started thinking differently about legacy. It’s not just about me lasting. It’s about us. I want humanity to survive this perilous moment we’re living through. I want us to make it to the other side of whatever this is….
The Sigils are evolving a bit into something intriguing and new. I’m planning on offering a set to mark the eight seasons of the year’s Wheel. Litha, or Midsummer, is coming up on June 21st, representing the vibrant season of light, zenith, celebration, and radiance.
I’d never made a yarn bowl before so when a fan of my work asked me to make her some, I was intrigued with the challenge.
Asimov’s I, Robot stories; the idea of positronic brains, the laws of robotics, etc., fascinated me. I loved the mix of complex ancient civilizations, philosophy, and science fiction. His writing made the potential exploration of worlds by future beings seem so vast and interesting.
What has become pretty clear to me is this: Artists who use their work or others’ work to train an AI to spit out images for them to paint are completely missing the real value of what they potentially could get from working with an AI assistant.
The gallery, Manor Mill in Monkton, MD, has invited me to participate in their group invitational show, “Out of the Forest” this August.
Lately, I’ve been adding videos of my sculpting process on my YouTube channel. I uploaded this one in February after firing a huge batch of mugs.
I’ll be attempting to provide you with shorter blog posts more frequently— once or twice a week — to fill you in on what’s happening in my studio.
Heartbreak is only temporary pain as I scoop the shattered bits of tiles into the dustpan or repair kiln shelves from the bubbled bits of glass fused to their surfaces. My heart begins to mend from the many failures with every dried bit of greenware I dump back into the clay reclamation bucket. Because with every failure, I earn an experience which teaches me something new about my craft.
One of the challenges I faced while making ceramics over the past several years is how to re-create something as it was the first time. Someone will say— “Oooh, I love that!” and want the same thing. This is where molds and stamps come in handy….
When I was a kid, I was more than slightly obsessed with little boxes of any sort. Then, I didn’t know for certain why. Perhaps because they held my most important treasures and keepsakes; I stashed….
Making the award sculptures for ConGlomeration’s Art Show was a fantastic time. Being given carte blanche meant I could just have a blast imagining anything at all…
When I had made a batch of these prototypes, I gave one to Elva, my pottery mentor who gifted me my studio and equipment. Her remarks on seeing the ware were that I was making pottery in the tradition of “face jugs.” What was that?
Sometime in the mid-90s, I had the opportunity to visit Harlan Ellison and his wife Susan at their home in Thousand Oaks, CA, and what I remember most was the gargoyles they had hanging over the garage entrance. When I got home, I just had to try making some of my own….
“Moonpots” are my variation on the 1000-year-old Yixing tradition of making lidded teapots. The Jiangsu region boasts a unique purple sand clay which the artisans use to produce beautifully hued ware, but it’s the method and precision of the construction of the pots which first grabbed my attention when I became aware of this tradition.
For the past couple of decades, a late December tradition has been to look back on the past 12 months and give its passing some kind of assessment. I remember all the wonderful people in my year and the “successes” for which I’m grateful, and then there are the things that didn’t go as planned but I’m still happy if I learn something from the experience. This exercise is also accompanied by a list of
The Monsterpots are what you’d call a staple in my Kest Pottery shop. In marketing parlance, it’s called a “signature item” that I make all the time and it’s a unique thing. One might call it a branded work and in doing so, I betray the fact that I’ve been doing waaaaayyyy too much research about marketing.
Not gonna lie to you, I too, have been a little confused about all the sculpture and pottery that I’ve churned out over the past 30 years and what it means to my trajectory as an artist. As I’ve also been a serious…
Ever wonder how the ceramic process works? I'm fascinated by it and I think you'll be too once you know more. Ceramics, like many other art processes, is a multi-staged process. Here is my quick-and-dirty explanation:
I’d gotten to a point in my ceramic work where I was becoming curious about the chemistry and wanting to have more control over the surface appearance of my work, but even more, I wanted to cut down on the cost of my glazes. Commercial glazes are hella expensive but worth it for the reliability, and making glazes from scratch was a nightmare— so I was told….
Several years ago, I put aside all friendly warnings and dismissed my trepidation and started mixing my own glazes…
When I began using my kiln in 2016, I began keeping a log of the hours that each firing took to achieve a certain cone or temperature. For a few years, the number of hours really didn’t change too much unless the kiln was really loaded but then I noticed…
I was testing new glazes — a project I've been building for months, reformulating my entire palette away from heavy metal oxides toward Mason stains. Safer chemistry. What I didn't anticipate was…