116. Jake Brodsky, wood-fired oval bottle vase with handles

116. Jake Brodsky, wood-fired oval bottle vase with handles

 

 

 

 

Brodsky is from and currently resides in Montana. He has studied potting throughout the United States and 2023 he obtained an MFA in the New York State Ceramics Program at Alfred University. He states that his aim is “to create work that captures the sensory experience of environments of the natural world. I want my pots to transmit the feeling of a place and a time, while also capturing the touch and tension of the moment in time when they were made. In order for a person to understand my work, I feel that my pots need to be handled, examined, and lived with over time, as they reveal themselves like a landscape.” For other examples of his work and more about him and his goals, visit his website: jakebrodskyceramincs.com or his Instagram account: @jakebrodskyceramics.

He gave this explanation of the formation of this pot: “It is thrown round on the wheel without a bottom, and then altered while the clay is wet into the oval shape. Then when it has stiffened up a bit, I add a slab on the bottom and dry it slowly.”

Dark chocolate clay, unglazed, colors from wood-firing. Weight: 678 g (1.5 lb). Mouth dimensions: 2.8 x 3.2 cm (1-1/8 x 1-1/4 in); maximum dimensions (without handles): 7.5 x 12.5 cm (3 x 5 in); maximum width (with handles): 14.8 cm (5-7/8 in); base dimensions: 7.2 x 12 cm (2-7/8 x 4-13/16). Height: 15.2 cm (6 in).

This sits on the edges of the base, which is slightly concave. On the long sides of the base are two semi-circular indents, which look like there were impressed into the clay with something like the handle of a tool. The remains of the wads used to separate pots during firing are visible on the base. The base is slightly larger than the body of the body and is about 0.6 cm (1/4 in) thick. Above the base the walls of the body proper angle out slightly for about 5 cm (2 in) to reach the maximum dimensions. From there the walls curve inward to the neck, which is an oval roughly 3.8 x 4.7 cm (1-1/2 x 1-7/8 in). The neck is 12.5 cm (5 in) above the base. Above the neck the pot flares out into a ridge and then angles inward in more or less a straight line to the mouth. The bottom ends of the handles are at roughly the widest point of the body. The surface texture is quite rough and uneven due to ash deposits from the wood-firing. The artist's mark, an asterisk shape inside a circle, was impressed into one side of the vase just above the base.

This is unglazed. The colors range from a light cream through shades of brown to black. In certain lights, the pot has almost a golden sheen. There are heavy ash deposits on both sides; they show up in the photographs as the lighter areas.

When I saw this for the first time, I let out a feral growl of delight. It’s a great visual and wonderfully tactile object. Potters can’t control the minute details of what happens in a kiln during a wood-firing, but they can create the conditions that make good things happen. This pot is a splendid example of technique and skill making the best of natural forces.

Purchased from the artist in June 2021.