Wednesday, February 4, 2015

IRON ON IRON

Illustrated is a sleek thrown and altered oval baker form with lugs at each end and lobed in the center, front and back. Glazed in iron on iron, the decoration creates a sense of quadrants that coincides with the lobes and ends of the piece. I like making these pieces going all the way back to the early 90s after seeing both Ron Meyers and Jeff Oestriech create ovaled pieces, the former, casual, immediate and direct and the later exacting, well thought out and precise. Taking from both schools of creation, there is always room for both in one's vocabulary, this one being tighter and more structural, the details are added to accentuate the form and highlight its mode of manufacture. Truth be told, after all the wheel throwing I have done it is great to break the routine and take a thrown cylinder and cut, paste, fold and mutilate. Just another aspect of making pots.
"The less routine the more life."  Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888)