This saggar-fired piece measures 8.5 inches tall. Because it needs to be porous enough to absorb the carbon during the firing, it is not meant to be a vase: it will not hold water.
Let me tell you now this firing process came about for me:
Many years ago I discovered, while doing an American-style raku firing, that fresh leaves and grasses can, under the right conditions, create vegetation images on hot pots: During an all-day raku-firing marathon, a storm blew up unexpectedly. The tornado-force winds arrived so quickly I didn’t have time to stop the firing that was in progress. Fierce gusts of wind unexpectedly blew the trash can half a block away, and the still-thousand-degree bottle rolled down a dirt embankment, through some grasses, and came to rest against a fence post. To say that the retrieval of both the cover and pot was “spirited” would be an understatement—but well worth the effort.
After the pot had cooled, I was amazed to see that the copper-stained surface had retained images from the grasses through which it had rolled.
Somehow, I intuitively moved toward saggar firing in an attempt to capture a similar imagery. Looking back, I realize that it was a unlikely leap of logic that caused me to assume saggar firing would be the answer—that saggar firing would somehow capture the explicit detail of fresh vegetation pressed against pots, while still offering unpredictable, spontaneous surfaces. But it did! And it was likely one of those acts of grace or good fortune that occasionally enter each of our lives that caused the startlingly successful results in my first “veggie-saggar” attempt: wonderfully explicit images of vegetation dancing in and through the “celestial” patterning that blessed the rest of the pots’ surfaces. I call it an act of grace because it took me years of trying before I achieved a similar result. The imaging process is still elusive.
Many years ago, a paleontologist visited my studio. After questioning me about my firing processes, he chuckled and said, ‘You have almost duplicated the carbon- film-transfer method of fossil formation. What Mother Nature has taken a million years to accomplish, you have created in 60 hours. You’re making Fast Fossils!’ It is a name that has stuck.”
This approach is my way of continuing to try to expand my visual literacy…to expand my understanding of beauty, and to keep trying to learn how to make the pots that I don’t yet know how to make.
Please be sure to see all the detail photos.
Remember that the price on this piece includes packing, shipping and insurance to all continental US addresses.
Those of you interested in making purchases from Alaska, Hawaii and international destinations, please contact me with Number and Title at dicklehmanclayart@gmail.com
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