95. Kari Wojtanik, multicolored pit-fired bottle

95. Kari Wojtanik, multicolored pit-fired bottle

For Wojtanik, see item 91; for more on her pit-firing techniques, see item 100.

White clay, no glaze, colors from pit-firing. Weight: 294 g (10.5 oz). Rim diameter: 3.3 cm (1-1/8 in); maximum diameter: 6.8 cm (2-5/8 in); base diameter: 6.5 cm (2-1/2 in). Height: 15.3 cm (6 in).

This sits on the flat base. “Kari” was incised into the base. Just above the base, the walls were cut away in a bevel running around the circumference, about an eighth of an inch high, slanted outward at about a 45-degree angle. The walls rise upward from this bevel in more or less a straight line to the maximum diameter, which is 8.7 cm (3-3/8 in) above the base. The walls then slant inward to the rim in a concave arc. The exterior was burnished and is mostly smooth.

The colors—reds, grays, black—come from the pit-firing. Large areas of the walls were unaffected by the firing and the white of the clay shows through. Except just inside the mouth, the interior of the piece is white. The base and the bevel also show no color from the pit-firing. Wojtanik told me that she used coffee grounds, steel wool, a copper pot scrubber, and salt-soaked strips of paper to make the colors. See the next-to-the-last photo for a picture of the pot as prepared for firing (photo supplied by the artist). For the pattern left by the copper scrubber, see the last photo.

Purchased from the artist in May 2020.