On April 5th, from 6:00-9:00pm, come see Joel’s collaborative painted stoneware on display at Paige Dansinger’s “Cherry Blossoms” gallery exhibition in the Minneapolis Skyway Mall.
Gallery Paige is located at 811 LaSalle Ave in Minneapolis. The space functions as both a gallery and studio for Dansinger. A world-renown painter and digital artist, Dansinger was included in the museum exhibit, Gutai: Spledid Playground, Card Box, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NYC. She has also performed her artwork during residencies at the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts, the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Boston and New York’s Brooklyn College.
For her current collaboration with Cherrico Pottery, Joel throws clay bowls, platters, and plates for Paige to paint on with glaze materials. He then brings the painted bisqueware to his studio in St. Joseph for firing, and returns the finished pieces to exhibit in Gallery Paige.
Collaborations like these bring Joel’s work in conversation with the larger contemporary art world. His work with Paige not only diversifies his art, but Paige’s paintings come alive on Joel’s 3D pottery surfaces, meant for display and as functional dinnerware. When it comes to the collaboration, Joel says he feels honored to create pottery as canvases for Paige’s iconic paintings.
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Check out the process shots below to see how these two artists come together to make beautiful works of art:
Joel first brings unglazed bisqueware to Paige’s studio for her to paint with glaze materials. Raw clay becomes bisqueware after it’s been fired once.Paige then paints each piece using underglaze materials. Her paintings typically feature a pallet of bright, playful colors and images.After Paige paints each piece with underglazes, Joel brings the painted bisqueware back to his studio and covers it with a coat of clear, glossy glaze. This will give the finished pieces a shiny, smooth surface after firing.At this point, the pieces are ready for 2200 degree firing. Joel uses an electric kiln to fire all his collaborative painted stoneware.
The finished pots will be exhibited April 5th at Gallery Paige in Minneapolis!
I remember the first time glazing a pot in Sam Johnson’s ceramics class last year. I had made this slightly uneven coil vase with pockmarked walls nearly an inch thick. The piece was truly ugly, an ogre really, but I couldn’t see the pot as anything other than beautiful. It was my Princess Fiona and I was its Shrek…At least until I glazed it.
Like most naive ceramics students, I pictured glazing just like painting. I picked out a handful of colors using the test tiles as my guide, and then brushed swooping glaze patterns all over my vase. By the time I finished, the pot looked like something straight out a kindergarten arts and crafts class. I on the other hand thought it was a masterpiece – a trophy of abstract art. When the thing (it was beyond a pot at this point) finally came out of the kiln, it was hideous. I looked over at my professor for encouragement. Sam walked over, took one look at my monster, turned to the class and said:
“Opening a kiln can be like Christmas or Halloween. Either the pots look amazing and you fall in love, or the results are horrible and you want to smash everything.”
The moment of truth, loading a kiln of glazed pots.
Unlike my great clay ogre, Joel can’t afford to make ugly pots. He makes his living through pottery, and as a result, his experiments with glaze need to be calculated and precise. He needs to know exactly how each part of the glaze works; how copper, cobalt, and iron make red, blue, and rust colors when the glaze reacts with fire in the kiln. Glazes transform clay bodies from ogres into princesses. However, as Joel continues to explore glaze chemistry, he finds that these potions are often difficult to create. Like the alchemists I wrote about last post, Joel works tirelessly to find the right balance of form and color that’ll turn a clay body into a beautiful work of art. For his livelihood, each glaze must reach for a certain standard of beauty.
– Studying past glaze recipes, tweaking the ingredients to make more alluring pots.
Looking back at his previous body of work, I think Joel’s been chasing this certain type of beauty all along. It’s been hidden in his work throughout the years, and now I feel we’re just starting to uncover it in the color blue.
Take a look at the gallery below to see an evolution of this blue color. Even in woodfiring, salt firing and copper red glazes, the color blue shows up. I can track the color throughout his work back to 2008:
Numerous potters talk about the lore of blue pottery. Throughout the ages, potters can’t seem to shy away from it. I’ve heard some contemporary potters even refer to the color as cash-flowblue.
Our text book this semester has been Bernard Leach’s A Potter’s Book. Now a 50 year old text, Leach provides a rich history of how ceramics has evolved. His book not only offers rich lessons of the past, but it also gives insights into the future. But even Leach, who wrote the book after decades of experience under his belt, could not seem to understand the lure of the color blue in ceramics. These stories share his experiences with blue glazes:
“At my St. Ives workshop each summer we are asked by three visitors out of four for colour and yet more colour, blue and the more intense the better, is easily the favourite.”
– A Potter’s Book, page 36
“Yesterday we had a good bunch of people, 2 of whom at least knew a good pot when they saw it. One woman started by asking if we hadn’t got any ‘blue pots’, and when David showed them that the last olive-blue glaze for which we have experimented for years, she said: ‘Oh! Do you call that blue?'”
– A Potter’s Book, page 227-228
Perhaps what this all boils down to is something we talked about in the beginning -the pursuit of beauty. Some of the best potters in the contemporary art world don’t make beautiful work. Their work is strange, ugly and confusing.
With this in mind, does the color blue still have a place in the contemporary ceramic world? This poster sits above our workspace, and it’s made from postcards Joel picked up in Philadelphia in 2010 at NCECA (National Council for Education for the Ceramic Arts). It gives a snapshot of the contemporary ceramic work, and shows only a handful of simple, blue pots. Joel will be at the conference in Milwaukee next week networking with contemporary potters and pottery enthusiasts. His goal is to show that the color blue continues to have a strong lure in both historical pottery as well as contemporary ceramics. He wants his work to be a bridge between historical potters like Leach and contemporary artists like Paige Dansinger. As a result, we’ve prepared some innovative market ideas, re-designed the website home page, and packed the online store with blue pots and artist collaborations with Dansinger. We’re prepared for the biggest ceramics conference in the country and we’re hoping to lure people to us with our blue pots!
In many ways, the work of the modern potter mirrors the work of the ancient alchemist. Potters blend earthly materials like clay, stone, and ash, into complicated glaze mixtures. Then through fire, these base substances transform into precious works of art. With glaze chemistry, and one part modern alchemy, potters turn the natural elements we once took for granted into the treasured artifacts we display in our homes and galleries.
It’s interesting to see how much the glazing, alchemy, and human life relate to each other. Bernard Leach, author of A Potter’s Book, helps us understand glazes by relating them to the body. He says most glazes have 3 main parts -the blood, bone, and flesh. Here’s how they work:
1.) Fluxing agent or “life blood of the glaze” – causes the glaze materials to melt and flow together in the kiln firing.
2.) Refractory or “bone of the glaze”– resists heat and melting, providing structure and strength to the glaze body.
3.)Glass Former or “flesh of the glaze”– creates complexity, depth and unique qualities.
(page 133-134)
Similar to Bernard Leach, the early alchemists fused their chemical efforts with the body. Calling their experiments the Magnum Opus, or “Great Work,” these men searched tirelessly for the right chemical concoctions that would enrich life or prevent death. In some ways, full-time potters do the same through glaze chemistry. They are constantly searching for that perfect potion that will immortalize a clay body and turn sand, water, and ash into gold.
These 2 books, by potters John Britt and Phil Rogers, gave Joel the necessary skills to develop that perfect glaze surface, but like the early alchemists, he’s still searching.
Like alchemy, glazing is often a fiery, messy, and sometimes toxic process. The kiln releases CO2, the powdered glaze materials are dangerous inhalants, and the heavy metal colorants cause skin irritation. Joel mixes all his glazing in an old boat shed. This dirty, dark laboratory gives him 24 hour access to glaze experimentation, providing the perfect amount of chaos to create beautiful works.
Joel’s pottery has to be strong enough to be used in a coffee shop everyday. The Local Blend Baristas say they wash a mug up to 5 times per day, 7 days per week! With this in mind, Joel adapted the Nuka glaze to suit the stress. Traditionally a simple 3-ingredient mixture, Joel added more chemicals to strengthen the glaze surface, reducing flaws like pinholes and crazing while increasing durability and gloss. Here’s the recipe for all the curious potters out there:
Some potters spend their careers trying to find the right glaze mixtures. In next Friday’s post, we’ll delve into some of these mixtures more and explore the lure of pretty blue pottery.
Cobalt-based glazes, or what some potters call “cash-flow” blue glazes, have been mystifying both potters and customers for decades.
“At my St. Ives workshop each summer we are asked by three visitors out of four for colour and yet more colour, blue and the more intense the better, is easily the favourite.”
When Joel went to see Bill Gossman at a small pottery workshop in New London, the time-tested artist wedged, centered, and threw 25-50lb. blocks of clay at a time. These blocks, impressive in themselves, soon became massive 3-4ft. jugs that Gossman needed to finish in multiple sections. If you have ever thrown pottery or seen somebody throw pottery, then you’ll understand the effort Gossman needed just to raise that amount of clay once. He did it three times per jug.
Click the image to view Joel’s Facebook album of the “Gossman and Morris Workshop”
As someone who’s only thrown about ten functional mugs in his life, potters like Gossman amaze me. They possess an unparalleled dedication to their craft. And like any professional athlete, these guys will often spend years practicing and perfecting their work before they receive any recognition.
Reitz working long hours at a 2009 pottery conference in Flagstaff, AZ.
Consider someone like Don Reitz for example. When Joel went to see the 84 year old potter at a 2009 workshop in Flagstaff, AZ, Reitz started working before anyone else in the morning and stayed well over an hour late each night. In only 2 days, Reitz went through 2 wheelbarrows full of clay! These pictures show only a small sample of Reitz’s work, but listen to him discuss it here for the full story.
Warning -it gets emotional.
Years after the conference, Joel contacted Reitz. This workshop directly led to Joel’s creation of Mindscape, and Joel wanted to connect with Reitz by sending him a cup or two as a thanks. Still humble after years at the wheel, Reitz wrote back saying, “A cup is not necessary, I’m just happy to know that my work is appreciated. Also, watch the movie The World’s Fastest Indian. Rent it or whatever. It’s about TOTAL COMMITMENT.”
As spectators to art, we only see the final product. We never see the hours of studio-time behind the world’s fastest motorcycle or even a massive clay sculpture. We see the game, but we don’t see the practice. What I’ve learned from hearing the stories of people like Gossman, Reitz, and Joel is that to make beautiful pieces of art, a potter needs to balance inspiration with dedication. Like Reitz says, he needs TOTAL COMMITMENT by immersing himself in the clay.
Michael Cardew was a historically famous potter that lived a tough life partly by choice and also by circumstance. While in Africa, he made pottery in places where water was so scarce, he had to use caustic wood ashes to make clay more plastic. Joel often looks at Cardew’s biography when he needs motivation, especially in the more difficult times of his career. Here’s a quote from the book that I feel speaks well to Joel’s pottery. Joel first heard it from his friend and author Ken Ferber. It says:
“…a good design in pottery is the product of a tension or ‘dialect’ between the demands of pure utility and those of pure beauty, and only a long experience and continual struggle enables you to achieve a successful fusion of the two.”
-Michael Cardew
The biography goes on to describe Cardew as a potter with “athleticism” and his work with clay as, “direct, physical and urgent.” I think you could prescribe the same qualities to almost any professional potter, especially guys like Gossman and Reitz who continue to make massive ceramic pieces throughout the second half of their career. These guys are making a statement through their effort. And in many ways, their art then becomes the direct expression of this effort.
8ft. tall Wheel-thrown clay sculpture by Peter Voulkos, converted to bronze, Minneapolis Institute of Art, photo by Joel Cherrico, 2009
A lot of this philosophy parallels the Abstract Expressionistschool of thought which was made popular by artists like Jackson Pollack and Peter Voulkos. Joel himself draws heavily from the abstract expressionists. He feels abstract expressionism has the potential to foster a healthy lifestyle through clay. Mindscape was Joel’s first experiment with abstract expressionism, but even with his functional pottery or hump throwing demonstrations, he likes the almost unconscious movement of working through 50lbs. of clay spinning on the wheel. For him, clay becomes an expression that’s at every moment “direct, physical, and urgent.”
2,000lbs Stoneware + 3 flights of stairs = afternoon workout
Guest Blog posting from Alex Forster: “Marketing Intern” and senior English major at the College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University. View his Linkedin Page here.
Recently, Joel pulled a mug off the counter of the Local Blend. Its lip had chipped, and he didn’t want people drinking from it anymore. The mug was one of the earliest pieces Joel had offered the Blend three years ago. And over the course of a thousand washings, handlings, and refills, the mug had started to wear the scars of a wounded soldier. Its chapped foot was tattooed with the number sixteen marking ounces, its curves were scratched from being passed across countertops, and its insides were browned with coffee stains. Almost no part except its speckled yellow skin was in the original condition. But instead of throwing the mug away, Joel discovered beauty in its scars. Now it sits like a trophy on a shelf in his office -a proud token to the life of pottery.
An early mug Joel brought to the Local Blend 3 years ago. Besides the chipped lip, the mug has a vertical hairline crack, chipped edges on the foot, and permanent coffee stains inside.16 marks the mug ounce size, drawn with permanent marker 3 years ago so a Local Blend employee knew what drink size to make.
Every pot tells a story. And like people, we can learn a lot about our pottery by looking at its history. One of Joel’s friends, a fellow potter named Matthew Mejia, recently shared these words of wisdom on Joel’s Facebook page. They come from the Pennsylvania potter Jack Troy. He writes, “My feeling is that we potters finish our work, but only others can complete it, through use. Pottery, therefore, is only finished once, but can be completed endlessly, by a succession of users, keeping it active in a variety of settings. When we say we are ‘moved’ by a pot, it may be the animating force of its creator refusing to be still.”
Joel tries to emulate this mindset in his pottery installations at places like the Local Blend. In one of our earliest conversations, he said to me, “Surround yourself with pottery.” When we bring pottery into our lives, we ourselves become artists. Like the mug at the Local Blend, our lives scar little memories into the artwork. A chip in the lip may remind us of a time when we tried to balance too many things at once. Coffee stains may remind us of long conversations with close friends, or perhaps, long nights and early mornings. Whatever the scars are, our pottery shares the story.
Even the best potters cannot create two completely identical pieces. Sure, a potter may make 100 or even 200 pieces of the same style, but each one has its own personality. Each pot reflects the mindset of the potter at one particular moment on the wheel. On the same shelf in Joel’s office, next to the mug from the Local Blend, sits a porcelain cup by the potter Steven Hill. Joel got this piece after Hill came to the Paramount Arts Center for a 2 day pottery workshop. What’s interesting about the cup is its imperfection. A little s-shaped scar on the inside of the cup shows that Hill speed dried it. A crack in the glaze near the foot says that Hill had to reattach the part after it fell off during glazing. Even marks in the glaze itself show that Hill may have been rushing to get the piece finished before the end of the conference. Every part of the cup feels hurried.
The rough surface happened because Hill skipped the bisque firing, raw glazed the pot, then speed dried it.
Hill would probably regard this cup as “flawed,” and unlike Joel, I doubt he would exhibit it on his shelf of inspiring pieces. Many potters would never exhibit or sell a flawed pot, and most usually smash them. Joel, on the other hand, appreciates these flawed pieces for the stories they tell. For him, they hold life and personality -characteristics you can’t find in a machine made, or even a beautifully glazed, flawless pot.
When Hill glazed this cup, he accidentally ripped off the foot, then dipped it in glaze and stuck it back on. The hairline crack reminds Joel of this event.
Many of us, myself included, may feel like we need an art degree to understand a Salvador Dali painting or a Clase Oldenburg sculpture. But with pottery I feel it’s different. With pottery, our lives become the galleries. We not only bring the beauty of the art into our lives, but our lives make the art more beautiful. Potter Dick Lehman sums it up perfectly. When it comes to appreciating our pottery he writes, “Fine dinnerware has the potential for helping us to find, even though in a small way, affection for life and beauty in living.” So, the next time life requires pottery, take a moment to study its living history.
Every little scar in our pottery shares a story. Some are pleasant, some are unpleasant, but they are all important. Joel appreciates the flaws in his pottery for the important lessons they teach him. Below are some examples of these lessons.
This crack comes from “dunting” – a stress crack that happens when making pottery, but opens during the firing. The pot probably got bumped in travel, since Joel often drives to and from Minneapolis to get Paige Dansinger’s paintings on his pots and exhibit them in Gallery Paige.
Joel uses a wood ash glaze called Nuka, which gives his pots interesting and irregular qualities like surface pinholes. Nuka stains with coffee over time, allowing the pot’s character to evolve with the user. After getting banged around for 6 months in the Local Blend, this mug cracked and leaked. Employees wash the mugs up to 5 times per day, everyday, and sometimes a mug will hold up for over 2 years. Joel pulled this one from the Blend and quickly snapped a photo of the bleeding soldier.
This is an “S” crack that sometimes happens with hump throwing. Joel filled it with epoxy and metal leaf. Look at the amazing color the “S” crack has next to the Copper Red glaze.
