185. Andrew Sartorius, “Firebox Sculpture 7”

185. Andrew Sartorius, “Firebox Sculpture 7”

For Sartorius, see item 143.

From the artist: “This series of sculptural vessels explores shape and form allowing each sculpture to emerge through my coiling and carving process of hand building. The sculptures reveal themselves to me in shifting form and merging and meeting lines that lend themselves to focusing on kiln placement and the interaction between clay choice and kiln effect.”

Dark clay from West Virginia (in the other two pieces by this artist that I own, the clay was harvested on his grandparents’ farm in West Virginia—this appears to be the same clay.). Weight: 1842 g (4.1 lb). Width: 15.2 x 16.4 cm (6 x 6.5 in). Height: 14.5 cm (5-3/4 in).

This sits on a flat base. roughly an oval 9.5 x 7 cm (3-3/4 x 2.3/4 in). The base is slightly concave. The central portion of the body is generally circular. The two “sides” are concave circles. The circular opening in the top is about 3.2 cm (1-1/4 in) in diameter. The shape of the interior more or less follows that of the exterior. The surface is pitted but not particularly rough, except on the smaller concave side, whose surface is much rougher than the other areas of the piece.

This appears to have a lining glaze on the interior. The exterior has a natural glaze from the wood-firing, with colors ranging from black to gray to a rusty red. The piece was fired in the lower front of a train kiln for two days and was coated with fine ash particles to create a unique layer of ash effects on the exterior.

A great piece, exploiting the potentials of clay and wood-firing. It gives a strong feeling of being a part of a larger structure, a machine perhaps. The surfaces flow naturally into each other.

Purchased from the artist in March 2022.