“The Interstellar Traveler”
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….
Read MoreThe 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.
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This wider-mouthed one also had a calming “Whale’s eye”.
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.
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A ceramic frame which will eventually have a drawing in the inner space.
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.
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The gallery, Manor Mill in Monkton, MD, has invited me to participate in their group invitational show, “Out of the Forest” this August.
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Bisqued planter cauldrons with applied oxides. 2021.
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.
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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.
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The tile, Nimue. In Japanese culture, wabi-sabi— to “embrace the imperfect,” is often a rationale for repairing broken pottery (kintsugi). With this philosophy there’s less trauma when damage occurs, often with a highlighting of the imperfection as a kind of journey or experience of the object. This tile had too much fragmentation and still would have to be fired again to stoneware temperatures that I’ve decided to use the pieces as glaze-testing pieces instead.
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.
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“Family crest” stamps for a couple to be married in Ecuador. These will be used by a potter there to create a set of platters and cups for their household. 2023. These were sculpted or carved into terra cotta clay and then fired for hardness so they can be used again and again.
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….
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Lotus moonpot, 2022.
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….
Read MoreMaking 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…
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“Patty” a monsterpot that I made a year or so after the prototypes. I was still using commercial glaze here.
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?
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Hanging in my current studio is one of the oldest gargoyles I’d ever made (1996?). Dark brown and lovely, Della Robbia clay is an “air dry” clay that can be heated in a kitchen oven to obtain a certain hardness but it would still dissolve in water.
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….
Read More“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.
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Kest Pottery “Eyeball” mugs. Thank you for a wonderful year!
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
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Randy is a colorful little guy who likes to sing show tunes at the top of his lungs (usually while in the car).
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.
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A frieze of crows.
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…
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Recent fired piece: Ophanim, terra cotta and manganese oxide wash, 8” w x 9” h. 2022.
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:
Read MoreI’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….
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Is green my favorite color? Uh, yeah.
Several years ago, I put aside all friendly warnings and dismissed my trepidation and started mixing my own glazes…
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