Pottery Write Up

BACKGROUND

John Mitchell has been running Dew Claw Studios for seven years. He turned to pottery after first making his living as a graphic designer and then a computer programmer. As well as making and selling his own work, John offers various pottery classes through Dew Claw as well as selling 'membership' to the studio so potters without their own facilities can use the studio's wheels and kilns. He said that he and his wife had thought carefully about their business model before setting up the studio, and that they had consulted with local potters such as the RISD ceramics professor to determine the demand for the facilities they are now offering. John told us that while such studios are his are relatively common on the west coast, the model was not so established on the east coast when he first started his business. Things are now starting to change, however, and businesses such as John's are becoming more widespread.


POTTERY PHILOSOPHY

John prefers not to take commissions, as he finds that people do not understand that no two pieces are the same and that he cannot completely replicate an existing piece for a customer. He does occasionally take very vague 'commissions' from his more established customers. As well as quite sculptural artistic pieces he also makes some functional ware and small pieces of flatware, which sell well because of their low price. His most popular pieces are flat clay models of fish for wall hanging, which he sells through a gallery. Although he does not find making these especially inspiring, he continues to make them and to make 'Eastern seaboard fish' rather than his preferred tropical fish as the gallery owner tells him this is what is the most popular. He even enlightened us on some of the tricks of his trade: by making the lip of a vessel thicker the buyer expects it to be heavier and is happily surprised by its weightless quality. Secondly, by making a lip more round it draws the eye to the symmetry of the lip, and the buyer will not notice minor incongruencies elsewhere within the vessel.

John is a very self aware potter; he has studied the chemistry of clay and the various techniques of firing, and feels that this impacts upon his pottery practice. He has a bookcase full of books on pottery next to his wheel. He also finds ancient pottery very inspiring for his work, particularly the simplicity and functionality of the Far Eastern pottery of China, Japan and Korea. This kind of deep involvement with the technicalities and history of the craft informing current practice is probably not something that we would see in the practice of ancient pottery. John himself, when asked what an archaeologist in one thousand years would make of his work, replied that hopefully the choices that he was able to make when sitting down to make a piece would be obvious; he is able to choose which type of clay and glazes he wishes to use as well as firing methods and form of the finished piece. This is opposed to both ancient potters and modern potters who make 'production line' material- they are limited in the materials and forms they choose to utilize.

TECHNICAL APPROACH

John uses a number of different techniques in his pottery. The majority of his vessels are wheel-thrown (although he also makes a variety of flatware, as discussed above). Of the vessels that we saw, about half were wood fired and half fired in a kind of Raku kiln (John explained that this was an American adaptation of Japanese Raku methods). The wood fired vessels had several glossy areas on their surfaces which resembled glazing- however, John informed us that this was a side effect of the wood firing process where ash had melted on to the surface of the ceramic.
Many of the Raku fired vessels had a 'graffiti' type pattern of glaze on them. John often utilized copper glazes for this, and this produced an attractive transition from a rich metallic copper color in an oxidizing atmosphere to a green in a reducing atmosphere. The Raku firing itself was achieved in a trash can filled with insulating material, with a hole cut into the lid so that the vessel could be removed once the firing had been completed- the correct time was estimated by visually judging the color and vitrification of the glaze. In comparison, the temperatures in the other types of kilns that John used (electric, gas and wood) were judged by using ceramic cones.

MATERIALS

John purchases pre-formed recipes of clay depending on the type of vessel or color desired, and firing technique he hopes to use. For a lot of this pieces though he simply uses reclaimed clay – which is a combination of the left over clay discarded from previous vessel attempts. He does not add additional temper. He does apply glazes and slips – typically lithium and copper based (as previously mentioned).