73. Kevin Viens, vase

73. Kevin Viens, vase

 

For Viens, see item 69.

Light brown clay, black, yellow, brown, red, dark blue, and light blue glazes; base left unglazed. Weight: 822 g (1.8 lb). Rim diameter: 8.5 cm (3-3/8 in); maximum diameter: 10.3 cm (4-1/8 in); foot ring diameter: 5.7 cm (2-1/4 in). Height: 17 cm (6-3/4 in).

The sits on the base of the foot ring. The foot ring is 0.3 cm (1/8 in) high on the exterior; the interior has been hollowed to a depth of 0.6 cm (1/4 in).  The artist’s surname, “VIENS,” is incised into the base. From the base the walls rise in a long shallow arc to the shoulders, which are 8.8 cm (3-1/2 in) in diameter and 13.2 cm (5-1/4 in) above the base. The maximum diameter lies 7.5 cm (3 in) above the base. There is a groove around the circumference of the pot at the shoulder. Above this, there are two concentric semi-circular ridges in the walls of the pot. The neck of the pot is directly above the second ridge; it is 7.5 cm (3 in) in diameter and begins 14.6 cm (5-7/8 in) above the base. The rounded rim of the pot is directly over this.

The base and the foot ring were left unglazed. A resist technique was used to create the red dots. They are so uniform in size and so circular that Viens must have used something like gummed circular tags to create them. It isn’t apparent in the pictures, but the dots are red around their perimeters; the interiors tend to be the same tan color as the clay. To judge from the splashes of other colors on the red glaze, it was the first coat laid down. Besides the red dots, the red is also visible in a narrow band just above the groove that marks the shoulder. From this groove down to the foot ring, the walls of the pot were covered in the dark blue glaze. The long, light blue lines were added over the dark blue glaze. A horizontal band encircling the neck was colored yellow and brown. Finally, the interior of the pot, the rim, and the upper portion of the neck were glazed in black.

In a pattern repeated in all the pots by Viens, a formal, well-modeled shape is combined with free-wheeling decoration. The complex color scheme works to emphasize the different parts of the pot.

Purchased at the annual spring sale at Feet of Clay Pottery, Brookline, Massachusetts, April 2019.