HIS CHAMBER
Raku-fired Ceramic artwork created for Erick Oh, for his solo HIS CHAMBER exhibition at the Lois Lambert Gallery in Los Angeles. The figures were sculpted in sculpey first according to Erick's specifications, cast in plaster, then slip cast to create two identical figures. From there, the base elements and individual elements unique to each figure were hand sculpted or thrown then detailed further. The heart dangles on jewelry wire. Erick carved the fisherman's pole from walnut. Glazed elements such as the heart, crown, KING base and key obtained a metallic sheen from the reduction atmosphere in the post-firing process. The clear glazed heads host intricate smoke-filled crackled lines. Both figures' bodies were left unglazed as was the rocky base. The rich blacks for Fisherman were created by thick smoke from burning hardwood shavings absorbed into the white clay body. Overall an incredibly complex work, and despite the challenges and harrowing firing process (which involved a lot of things catching on fire), it was a memorable experience in many ways.
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| FISHERMAN 2012 |
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| KING 2012 |
Porcelain Pottery Work
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| High fired to Cone 10 Porcelain cups! I use an engobe (color liquid clay slip) for the line detail. They become part of the clay body in the firing process. Just a small sampling and a needle-felted cactuar for good measure. |
Clay Dabblings
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| Crow in Snow: One of my favorite glaze combinations, white matte with Long Beach Blue. Where the blue is thin, it breaks brownish, where it is thick it appears deep ocean colored. The black of the crow is iron oxide. |
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| A good friend asked me to make a windchime for his mom. The frog sculptures were a lot of fun. The bells were thrown and then carved. I used Laguna's Dave's Porcelain. It sculpts well, and has a great resonance. |
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| The Lemon King: This was an experiment before executing Erick's HIS CHAMBER pieces to test the durability and delicate capabilities of the highly stressing raku fire, in addition to how the glazes would behave (as you can see, the reduction behaved differently on Erick's KING's crown). The Lemon King flew through with flying colors, but then got knocked over by a student in critique and subsequently broke his pointy wand thing. This is probably why a lot of ceramicists are hermits. |
