MOST OF WHAT'S AVAILABLE
If you can visit the studio that's best. Click on items for multiple views.
Burn Sage to Open a Window In Time
Roberto Varga said that his people ".... Burned sage to open up a window into time so that the ancestors and the unborn children could be present."
Read the back image.From east of Virginia, 4,500 meters of water depth.
Lava Bowl, Crystalline Center
5.5" wide x 4.5" high
From 4,500 meters down thru water column came this sediment off the Virginia coast. Evenly applied sediment melted into the branching pattern and, when molten, flowed over a brushed band of black glaze with cobalt. When sediment is applied thickly, sometimes it bubbles up, in this case it lifted crystals up. A fantastic example of what can happen -- click to see the detail of the center.
Glacier Bay Alaska - Four Inlets Named
This mixture of sediments from Glacier bay is gritty when it's unfired -- so gritty that I can hear a scraping sound as the material flows off my brush but then, in the kiln, it smooths out into this.
Namibian Rock Reports Ice at Equator
Says, "Snowball Earth a time and a place when 635 million years ago global glaciation says this melted Namibian rock." The rock slurry was applied thickly inside and thinly outside. The stoneware clay interacted with clay during firing and colored the glaze as it branched into rivulets. Rim and foot of glaze assembled from refined materials.
The Dark Cemetary - Ocean as Womb and Tomb
Of all sediment samples I've tried, the sediment on this rim is close to my favorite because it has a matte brown leathery look that allows each foram to suspend in it and speckle yellow from its shell that gives me goose-bumps while I reflect on the vitality that once emanated from the shell's pores. An odd kind of friendship, I know. And about the same time I was experiencing this life-changing transition, I saw an article in the New York Times about the ocean being a "womb and tomb". These vast cycles of space and time are a comfort to my sense that contemporary life is chaotic.
Not a bowl you appreciate for dramatic color! Interior sediment from Brazil Margin, rim from Ceara Rise, west of Africa.
Mandala From Evenly Applied Mud
9.5" wide x 6" high
Sediment poured into this bowl distributed the perfect amount to synergize with the temperature and time of firing to produce this. Wondrous self-organizing! More to talk about. Offset by cobalt blue rim.
Mid-Atlantic Spreading Ridge
The back has a continuous band of writing, including what came to me with the material. See more about the material used, known among geologists as the Kane Fracture Zone.
Big Dig Butt Pitcher
11.5" x 8.5"
Made as a sculptural conclusion to a day in Boston with female CEO of Big Dig construction. I had already tested the sediment and had spoken about uses of it for general public's education at an exhibit center. The conversation ended after she asked, "How many, how much?" (I never could fulfill people's wishes to commercialize and deliver quantities.) NOTE: clay stamped with Big Dig logo under the brown glazed area.
Earth's Pushing & Pulling
13" x 2"
"Converging diverging . . . spreading ridge here. Fissuring folding friction subducting there. Tectonics." Central two-fish area is framed by a chattered area of Mid-Atlantic Ridge rock slurry (diverging plates) framed by a band from Costa Rican accretionary prism (converging plates). Copper green glaze in center and matte white and lavender glaze on rim were assembled from refined materials.
Titanic: Size of a Large Egg
This was a test from a very small sample that I was given by an electrical engineer who scraped the sediment of the robotic pincers of a biologist's sample. The brown glaze is the sediment and three bowls and this are all I ever made from it (2 to the engineer and one to Bob Ballard as a thank you from WHOI when he delivered a keynote in Woods Hole). Blue glaze assembled from refined materials.
Mid-Atlantic Ridge Above & Below Sea Level
Fire-Flickered Atmosphere Causes Red and Green
5" wide x 3" high, porcelain
Not an oceanic glaze but a copper-based one that does it all. Excess fuel in kiln chamber danced about while volatilizing and reducing or oxidizing the glaze into reds, greens and transparent. This one has a blessed drip that stopped in time! Read it.
