I wish you all could reach out and touch this piece.
I just got this in the mail from a new friend in the Bay Area who happens to be the artist and craftsman behind
MossBeach.etsy.com.
This is an amazing soda fired yumoni with a fantasticly flashed and crackled slip exterrior that's compleate with "mineral tears" that oozed and harden on it's surface at the peak of it's firing, giving it a fun surface texture that feels really cool.
This is a potters cup. It's a true work of he(art).
Not only is he a top notch ceramisist, but he's also a pretty darn good writer too. I love a well worded explanation of what I'm seeing. Here's part of his discription for this piece...
This cup has a shino exterrior that blushes orange in proportion to the soda available in the atmosphere of the kiln. Where there is a particularly heavy hit of soda, the soda forms gray to green rivulets down the side of the cup. The Japanese asthetic of wabi sabi implies the imperfection, incompleteness, and impermanance of all things. These yonomi helps focus the owner on the uniqueness and beauty of the moment as they are held and used.
Hey Matt... You're the Man!
Thanks!!!
Licks, Love, & Luck...
-Zygote-
The story is that this kiln is an old “Wind Kiln” that was contributed to Clay Planet in Sana Rosa, CA. by Steve Davis. It's now a co-op kiln shared among a small handful of ceramic artists in the Bay Area. It’s an approximately 15 cubic foot doghouse coffin kiln powered by 2 squirrel cage blowers. It’s proving to be a very nice and simple design that fires really well in 5 hours or less. Check out Steve’s site for a look at his newer version of this kiln, it's very cool and big. The word is that the sweet spots lurk under the shelving. This is where the soda seems to accumulate really well. I got to fire this critter with Matt Brown of MossBeach Ceramics last weekend with great results. There seemed to be sweet spots all over this kiln! The only cold spot seemed to be the far back, but this most likely had to do with having to switching out the old blowers with new underperforming blowers. No problem... it's just a matter of an adjustment in strategies.
It's fun being back to the exciting life of living on a new learning curve. This one is rather steep, but Matt and I are already planning the next firing. It's couldn't be soon enough.
