144. Andrew Sartorius, ash-glazed, twice-fired teabowl

144. Andrew Sartorius, ash-glazed, twice-fired teabowl made using wild clay

 

 

 

For Sartorius, see item 143.

Dark brown wild clay from West Virginia, colors from wood- and soda-firings. Weight: 546 g (1.2 lb). Rim diameter: 12 cm (4-3/4 in); maximum diameter: 12.6 cm (5 in); foot ring diameter: 6.3-7.0 cm (2-1/2 to 2-3/4 in). Height: 7.6 cm (3 in).

This was hand-built using coils of clay. It sits on the foot ring, which is an irregular oval in shape. The outside wall of the foot ring is 0.3 cm tall (1/8 in). The interior of the foot ring has been scooped out to a similar depth to leave a triangular pattern of ridges meeting in the center. Above the foot ring, the walls rise at about a thirty-degree slope to a height of about 1.2 cm (1/2 in) above the base, reaching the maximum diameter at this point. The artist’s mark, a small circular seal with his initials inside, was pressed just above the foot ring in this section of the pot. From there the walls rise in more or less a straight line to the rim. The exterior surface of the bowl is very irregular both from the modeling and the ash deposits from firing. The interior is smooth.

This was wood-fired near the front of an anagama kiln. It emerged from this kiln with a “sharp layer of unmelted ash.” Sartorius then fired the pot again in a gas kiln to cone 11, using soda during the firing, to help fuse the glaze. The result is a thick melted ash deposit with a bright sheen over about half the exterior surface. The interior appears to have been shielded from the effects of the soda firing. The result is a mottled surface with colors ranging from whites through dark yellows shading into browns and blacks, with variations in the degree of shininess.

Purchased from the artist in August 2021.