Reorientations

Reorientations For a time I orbited your planet, revolved around your axis, oriented to your gravity When you released me, I spun off into black space untethered, momentum without orientation Wheel thrown forms are altered to create quasi two dimensional surfaces for painterly application of combinations of classic Chinese and Japanese glazes. The juxtaposition of […]

Companion Urns

Imagining Backwards Companion Urns Ritual funerary urns for two people are at once emblematic of love, death, and immortality. These twin-mouthed vessels, glazed with iconic Chinese celadon and chun glazes, the former like jade, the latter, like ice, are pierced with love poems, immortalizing intimacy and transiency within a classical form.

Demoiselles

Desmoiselles Based upon the form of an ancient wooden mallet, a distinct vase form emerged in 7th century Japan manifesting a uniquely figurative character. Inspired by Auguste Rodin’s interpretation of the fleeting movement of human form, these new interpretations defy the symmetry determined by the potter’s wheel, aspiring to dance.

Entanglements

Entanglements Albert Einstein described the phenomenon of quantum entanglement, where two particles separated in space are connected, as “spooky action at a distance.” Deconstructing two vessels, and recombining them to occupy one space, models an uncanny integration, whether in particle physics, or in the biology of love.

Flasks and Bottles

Flasks and Bottles Wheel thrown forms are altered to create quasi two dimensional surfaces for painterly application of combinations of classic Chinese and Japanese glazes. The juxtaposition of utility and expression – the fiction of function – becomes a field for vitreous materials transformed from solid to shattered liquid frozen in time.

Tea bowls

Tea bowls Vessels for the Japanese tea ceremony are produced with stringent, austere requirements for function. Emerging from aesthetics of the 16th century Momoyama period Zen tea masters, the size, shape, depth, weight, texture, lip, foot, and coloration are all very determined by tradition. What remains is interpretation.

Functional Ware

Functional Ware Shortly after arriving in Hawaii I met Clayton Amemiya, an anagama potter (using a tunnel kiln and ash glaze) who worked in a traditional Japanese style of pottery making. I observed his work for two decades, never quite understanding how these incredibly beautiful works came into being. There was just something about his […]