Handbuilt ceramics by John Walthier
I put this article together while traveling in the deserts of Namibia in Southern Africa. Oddly, I found similarity between the anagama kiln fired work of Eglė, a Lithuanian artist, and the stark geology of Namibia. I have no reason to believe there is any direct connection. Eglė herself describes the origins and inspiration forContinue reading “Eglė Einikytė-Narkevičienė – Artist Profile”
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My wife and I recently wandered into the Museo Castromediano in Lecce, Italy (also known as Museo Sigismondo Castromediano after the founder, an aristocratic collector who donated a large part of the collection). The museum is outstanding – not only its collection of local ceramics dating across millennia, but also in the way the museumContinue reading “Museo Castromediano – Lecce, Italy”
My wife and I have been traveling in Sicily and Puglia for a month. In Palermo’s Archaeology Museum we found an interesting exhibit of rooftop ceramics from ancient temples. These ceramic pieces worked to funnel water off the temple roofs – not an insignificant consideration since standing water on these large temple roofs would beContinue reading “Functional Ceramics in Magna Grecia”
I was immediately attracted to the simplicity of both form and palette in Mike Byrne’s distinctive ceramics. After some correspondence, I’m now also appreciative of his thorough focus on a particular object (the sculptural jug), and his dedication to exploring the versions and possibilities of this core idea. Nuance, balance, levity, control, abstraction – IContinue reading “Mike Byrne – Artist Profile”
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Robert Hawthorn Kitson was a wealthy British aristocrat who relocated to the small town of Taormina, Sicily, in the early 1900s to find refuge from persecution for his homosexuality. Kitson lived for many years at Casa Coseni, surrounding himself with prominent artists and writers of the time who would visit and sometimes stay for extendedContinue reading “Ceramics at Casa Coseni, Taormina”
Maria Diletta Rondoni is an Italian artist based in Umbria. She originally studied painting and has since worked with a wide variety of materials including glass, stained glass, jewelry, metal and ceramics. I certainly see references to jewelry-making in Diletta’s intricate, delicate ceramic forms. I also detect strong connections to nature and organic forms inContinue reading “Maria Diletta Rondoni – Artist Profile”
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Gareth Mason is an English ceramicist who pushes boundaries in both form as well as surface treatment. I’ve found his work inspiring and challenging. Inspiring in that he pushes the viewer to consider his or her own concepts of what the act of making ceramics is really all about; challenging in that his manipulations andContinue reading “Gareth Mason – Artist Profile”
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CoorsTek is a Colorado company established in 1910 by an Austrian immigrant John Herald, with financial backing by Adolf Coors, founder of Coors brewery. Originally, the Herald China and Pottery Company produced ceramic artware using clay mined near the Coors brewery in Golden, Colorado. At the request of the local Colorado School of Mines, theContinue reading “CoorsTek – Engineered Ceramics”
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Thomas Schmidt is a professor and artist, interested in 3D modeling and fabrication involving ceramics. I’ll let him describe his academic role and explain more about what’s happening in the academic world. He also took some time to explain the evolution of his artistic interests and his experiments with qualities and attributes of clay. JW:Continue reading “Thomas Schmidt – Artist Profile”
Stoneware “face jugs” were made by African slaves and freedmen in the area around the Edgefield District of South Carolina. Production seemed to have begun prior to the American civil war (1861-1864), perhaps back to the early 1800s. There are collections of these face jugs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York asContinue reading “Face Jugs from the 1800s”
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JTW Ceramics