I’ve been making raku veggies for over 20 years now. I have never grown tired of them, never grown tired of “playing with fire,” the iridescent colors, the surprises as they come from the kiln, the smoke, the burned fingers. They have become a little ongoing sideline to my art. They can be found in the select Maine galleries listed below.
These veggies, fruits, and trophy trout are hand built and wheel thrown. Most are made from plaster molds of real vegetables grown in my garden. The trout are fish that my father and his friends caught in Montana.
Raku is a firing process that involves taking the pot or sculpture out of the kiln while the glaze is molten and smoking it in barrels of pine needles, sawdust, or leaves to produce the metallic copper or crackle surface.
The raku work is a limited edition each year. The current garden crop: beets; turnips; carrots; pumpkins; hubbard squash; patty pan; turban; butternut squash; eggplants; peppers; pomegranates; red, white, and green cabbages; poppies; and sunflowers. From the rivers: “Trophy Trout” in two sizes and in various coppery blues, greens and white.
This work is available at Turtle Gallery, New Era Gallery, and Markings Gallery. For a price list, please email the artist.