Vessel
18"H (45.75cm)
Wheel thrown, pressed and incised textured surface.
Brushed raku, stoneware, and commercial low fire glaze.
Raku fired, post firing reduction with wood shavings.
I've been involved with clay full time since 1975
making pots, teaching, writing, and operating my own studio. From
my earliest introduction to clay I have always been fascinated
and excited about the wheel. It is not one, but all of the components
of that tool that hold and keep my interest; the speed, fluidity,
and in particular, the sense of growth I observe and control during
the process. My aim and ambition is to make good pots. My work
is about vessels and the characteristics that make the vessel
come alive: volume, texture, color, and scale. One of my objectives
is, through my vessels, to preserve the connection between contemporary
ceramic expression and pottery's origins as functional containers,
not to transform and abandon it. Though my forms are not functional
as in domestic ware, they do suggest function and are certainly
containers.
Raku is a practice that offers the best of all worlds
for me. The method is deeply rooted in tradition and I approach
it with the utmost respect for the technique and it's origins.
And while it's origins serve as a constant reminder to me of where
the craft has evolved from, it's contemporary incarnation is very
different. So, I can work simultaneously in a traditional method
where all the rules have been established, and a contemporary
technique where the rules are constantly in question.
Read Steven
Branfman's Raku FAQs.
