155. Evelyn Aronson, handbuilt vase, ca. 1970

 155. Evelyn Aronson, handbuilt vase, ca. 1970

Brown clay, heavy brown glaze over most of surface; bottom unglazed. Weight: 696 g (1.5 lb). Maximum width: 10.7 cm (4-1/4 in); width of mouth: 3.5 cm (1-3/8 in); width of neck: 6.3 cm (2-1/2 in); width of base: 5.6 cm (2-1/4 in). Height: 8.7 cm (3-1/2 in).

This sits directly on the base. The walls rise in a convex arc to the shoulders (also the point of the maximum width) 5 cm (2 in) above the base. From there the walls move inward in more or less a straight line to the neck, which is 8.3 cm (3-1/4 in) above the base. The angle of the inward movement becomes steeper at the neck, which is about 1.3 cm (1/2 in) wide.  The bottom of the pot is incised with the artist’s initials “EA”; a square label printed with the peace sign in blue covers most of the incised letters. Written in ink on this label are “EA” and “$8.00.”  A circular label above this has “Evelyn Aronson” and “Princeton” written on it, also in ink. “Princeton” could refer to any number of places in the United States.

The edges of the base and the lower sides of the walls have many short, straight lines incised into them. They look like the type of marks that would be left by the tines of a fork. The shoulders and neck of the vessel are similarly scored with many short, straight lines. Just below the midpoint of the walls, a heavy, irregular groove has been gouged into the walls about three-quarters of the way around the circumference.

The walls of the pot are very bumpy and rough to the touch.

Most of the interior appears to have been glazed with the same glaze as on the exterior. The neck and the incised grooves show a much darker color, black in places, where the glaze is thinner. The glaze was splashed against the upper shoulders of the vessel and allowed to drip down. The base is unglazed. The glaze was quite thick. This shows some characteristics of the type of carbon capture found in wood-firing, but if the date is correct, wood-firing was much less common in the USA than it is today.

This is a very heavy, solid pot. Unusually for the time, it is quite “crude”; most potters ca. 1970 were throwing pots on wheels and aiming for symmetry and even glazes. Aronson was ahead of her time.

Purchased from the Charlie B. Gallery in Carson City, Nevada, October 2021.