Portfolio of Works

When firing a Horse Hair piece of pottery I often use the tail hair from someone's own personal horse and the pot/vessel becomes a special remembrance piece forever.    The piece is initially bisque fired in an electric kiln, then sanded down until smooth, then refired in a gas kiln to about 1400 degrees where it is removed and the horse hair is placed on the exterior of the pot so that the hair burns into the pots surface and the carbon is trapped leaving black lines where the hair was burnt into it.  An amber color can be added with the addition of ferric chloride being sprayed onto the pots surface while it is still hot.  After cooling the piece is cleaned and sealed.

Horse Hair pottery is nonfunctional and is not suitable for food or holding water.  It is for decoration only.

Taking old silver-plate items such as teapots etc and transforming them into fun everyday and/seasonal decorations is a unique way to reinvent some no longer wanted into something treasured.

These pieces are fired in the American Raku tradition, where the bisque piece is glazed with special glazes and re-fired in a gas kiln to almost 1900 degrees.  It's then removed and placed into a reduction container with combustable material.  When the hot clay piece touches the combustable material it will start it on fire.  The container's lid is placed on it and the the fire continues to burn until the oxygen is used up  this oxygen starvation allows the glazes to "flash" different colors including "copper".   This fast cooling will cause cracks in the glaze that smoke will penetrate, giving the Raku piece that familiar black lines.  What makes Raku Pottery beautiful also so makes it nonfunctional...  it is not food safe or water tight.  

This is where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  Using a variety of everyday objects and combining the pieces, each figurine has been curated and assembled so that the cumulative parts produce a unique Girlfriend that is sure to be someone’s new treasure.

the  Omit on these pieces comes from various chemicals that are absorbed during a rabid firing and cooling cycle.

some may have a glaze enhancement.

These pieces have been Thrown on the wheel and altering the shape by stretching the clay.  Sodium silicate is sometimes used to dry the clay surface so that it has a "broken" look.  

Wheel thrown, wax resist glaze pattern, raku fired.

There is no higher honor than to make an urn.

I don't make many of these treasures due to the amount of time it takes to create them, however when I do, they are super fun!

This piece was made replicating a tattoo.

These are examples of food safe pieces or water tight vases.  Fired to Cone 6 temperature.

"Best of the Best"  Local Artist for El Dorado Hills CA 2018