More Pots From Our Collection

These two woodfired pots are from Steven Godfrey, who teaches at the University of Alaska at Anchorage.
What I love is how different his current body of work is from this old woodfired stuff. His sensibilities towards the form are still very similar (probably from the KCAI influence)... but the new work speaks volumes of time, practice and stability.

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.

Shots from our collection

A wonderful teabowl from Hiroshi Ogawa (who really should have a website!)

I met Hiroshi back when I was doing a show called Art in the Pearl in downtown Portland, OR.
I traded a short pitcher with a wide handle for this teabowl. He wanted a bigger tankard for his afternoon beer. To this day, I have never seen a more amazing Shino. This glaze is both iridescent and translucent. It just glows! Hiroshi woodfired all of his work in a noborigama that he wouldn't shut up about all weekend long. Turns out that his kiln cranks out some of the best pots (for some amazing potters!) in all of the Northwest. He invited me to come and fire some of my big massive platters in his kiln before I left Utah. Never happened, but I sure do wish it had!

These two I made while I was studying with John Jessamin at SUNY Cortland during the year between college and my short stay at Alfred. The shino bowl has been refired in probably eight or nine bisque firings to try to redden it up a bit. Didn't catch much carbon trapping with that shino. The tenmoku bowl is one of the very few examples of my pitiful attempts at brushwork.





I made this at Alfred ca. 1994. Thanks to the suggestion of Todd Wahlstrom, I was playing with layering slips under my high calcium - fake ash glazes. This was also the beginning of me starting to distort my bowl forms.

So where did these pots come from?

I started collecting pottery when I was at Hampshire College. At each successive school I attended (Alfred, Cornell, Utah State, etc)... I picked up pots where ever I possibly could. Some were pots from students, occasionally some came from professors, and some came from potters in the community. Some are mine, hopefully indicating the changes one goes through over time, but also the changes that come from a different studio environment. When I would do shows, I always tried to either trade or buy the best pot I could find (within price/reason).

Now I seldom do shows so there is less opportunity to pick up new pots. Last year when we had apprentices here, I picked up a few pots which I have yet to shoot new images of. I hope that when I finally get finished shooting this collection, I will have written more stories about how these pots came into my life.