I’m not Joel, but in third grade, we spent Mrs. Sullivan’s class scheming on the fort we wanted to construct around our desks.  Joel doesn’t remember or deny this, but he does confirm that he had a “fort phase.” Naturally I now write about his pottery.

I’ll teach six more weeks in Dubai, UAE, which is ultimately an airport:  Being unsafe takes effort, you can get what you need but with preservatives, and jewels and gadgets of all countries attempt to constitute a style of one’s own.  If flying through O’Hare is not visiting Chicago, being in Dubai isn’t the definitive Middle Eastern experience.

Ski Dubai: Where Arabia goes to ski and shop and the environment goes to die.

Jacques Peak, photo by Joel while skiing at Copper Mt. Colorado.

Joel's signature included on each pot- it describes how he pulls inspiration from the natural world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I can’t curse it, though. Safety, convenience, dreamy beaches, solid job, and good friends — not torture. And there are little glimpses of an older-than-me culture here if I bother to look.  You can hear the call to prayer from five mosques at once at Kite Beach.  Graffiti and Iranian merchant ships frequent the creek in Diera.

But these joys are fleeting, up against the cranes, malls, Maseratis and TGIFridays.  It’s mostly contrived to look Arabian. Give the people what they want: stucco, marble, huge doorways–literal smoke and mirrors.  Look at our fancy Arabian-esque mall! It’s just like Arabia, but big! And with retail! It’s like Arabian retail Inception!

People list Dubai’s location as a reason to stay here. “Well, it’s just so easy to travel from here.” The place’s value is attributed to the ease with which residents can escape it? Huh.

But it’s true. I hopped to Jordan for spring break this year to reorganize my self. I traveled with a kind family of hippies and a lumberjack, the best travel crew I’ve ever known.

Jordan is even more Westerner-friendly than Dubai but doesn’t abandon its culture to be this way.  Like a family dinner instead of a fancy restaurant meal, Jordan offers what it has instead of what it thinks you want: its own food, open air markets, monolingual Arabic signage, and even locals who groom their own facial hair.

The whole week gave off an aroma of chance as we took in seemingly private moments, decidedly uncontrived.  I felt snug and small as I watched them, un-special myself but privileged to see something special, like a rare phenomenon of nature.

We took a scenic route and would fall short of Petra by sunset.  Hani, driver and guide, consoled us with an iPod adaptor cord.  Banjos and guitars and wailing harmonies crowded into all the van’s empty spaces, and we howled out open windows as the afternoon began to droop. At sunset, we unloaded on the side of the road.  A fresh wind bloomed from a vast gorge.  The sun resolved down in the valley and a mist settled below.  Our hair swirled in the continuous gust, and we laughed our exhilaration, maybe at the implied joke of possibly passing that moment anywhere else. The unexpected wind swept upward, not threatening to knock us into the gorge but to blast us far from it — Southeast Asia, New York, Seattle. We threw our arms wide to catch air that was left off our itinerary.

I slept with my windows open in Petra.  At 4:30 AM I popped awake, panicked by the bullhorn fervor of a grown man hollering at full voice. I laid back down and let the loud, emphatic call to prayer steamroll into the room.  The snoring cut out abruptly from the next bed, startled into a hush. If he was awake he didn’t say anything.  Neither of us rose to shut the window. The curtains undulated with the breeze, giving the illusion that the invitation to prayer was a physical thing, one that could move fabric and make noise and feel cold. I smiled, flat on my back, that someone’s job was to wake us up to be grateful. It would have happened without me. The call would have sounded and Petra’s men would have walked to the mosque with their prayer mats even if I had slept in my Dubai bed.

Joel explains two reasons for using wood ashes in his glazes: philosophy and aesthetics.

The philosophy bit carries a sense of participation in a community or cycle. His ashes come from a family in Collegeville, MN, who heat their home with a wood burning stove. This wood is entirely deadfall or dying trees, which the family harvests from the St. John’s Arboretum. The ashes then are “an expression of the landscape,” he says. They reflect the types of trees from which they come and where those trees grew.

But wood ashes are harder to work with. It takes “dozens of hours” to sift through them and special glaze chemistry to mix custom glazes, which are ever-changing: “When the ashes change from year to year, so must my glaze recipes. Pine ashes differ from Oak, Walnut, etc.” The trees don’t really care that Joel has a glaze to make.  They live and die on tree watches, and the Nuka glaze takes from them what it can get. The pots that use this glaze are simply reflections of the small moments that Joel catches — a season heavy with pine or oak, a stop on the side of a Jordanian mountain.  Things happen, and sometimes we’re both lucky enough to see them and crafty enough to capture them.

The second bit is the aesthetics.  Joel says of his ashes, “I’m curious how this earthen material often creates an earthen aesthetic.” He points to “complex glaze surfaces, rustic tones, natural color variation, spots, drips, asymmetrical patterns that” remind him of “colors and surfaces in nature.”

He appreciates the unpredictability and experimentalism of every firing when he uses these materials, especially when he incorporates iron, which reacts with the ashes to create dark contrast. The more labor-intensive and unruly work is rewarding.

He boils it down to this: “Constant challenge helps the artwork learn and grow.” I like the idea that the art itself is being challenged, that art learns. I like even more that he goes looking for this challenge because art’s learning is a worthy pursuit.

It’s a human tendency to tuck that learning into a classroom, a box, or a fail-proof glaze formula to use for all time:  This is how we learn about culture. This is how we make the Nuka glaze. But it’s not that simple, and that’s why it’s so valuable.  The end product is at the mercy of all the calls to prayer and winds from Jordanian valleys and fallen Minnesota branches from any family of trees — nothing we can plan or reign over. And the statement that forms won’t ever be said that way again, not for us and not for as long as we live, which makes that mug seem like quite a privilege for your coffee refill, no?

“Copper Red Glazes” by Robert Tichane is the best resource I’ve found for Copper Reds.   If you want to learn about reds I say read it, then read it again.  He suggested that any base glaze can be adapted to a Copper Red glaze by adding 2% Copper Carbonate and 3% Tin Oxide and then firing in a reduction atmosphere.  This inspired the above glaze, which was originally an Elaine Coleman Celadon that I found in an old Ceramics Monthly.  I added the Copper and Tin, as well as a bit of EPK to raise it from cone 9 to cone 10.  Here’s the recipe, and don’t forget to glaze very thick!!

Another book that’s super helpful for Copper Reds, and just about every other glaze at Cone 9-10 is “The Complete Guide to High-Fire Glazes: Glazing and Firing at Cone 10” by John Britt.  Buy this book, seriously.  I learned most of what I know about glazing from this book.  John also describes a bunch of his techniques all over Youtube, here’s a great one for glaze testing:

Easy Glaze Testing (color blend) (part 1)

The images below show the “John’s Red” glaze on stoneware. It’s also important to note that John’s Red glaze is much more vibrant than the above glaze (Copper Red/Elaine Coleman Celadon), which is often liver colored, or muddy brownish red.  I wonder why???

The left image shows John’s Red at cone 9 over Fireclay Stoneware with iron.  I really like these dark burgundy reds, but recently I’ve switched to “Tableware- No Oxide” clay from Continental Clay, which is a white stoneware with very low iron content.  It helps brighten up the reds, like the cup shown on the right.  The rim was also dipped in a Nuka glaze, which ran down the pot during the firing.

John’s Red over Fireclay Stoneware with iron, cone 9. The green drips are from layering a Chromium glaze, the blue drips happen naturally when the Copper Red pools thick. Increasing Copper Carbonate will result in more blue hues.

John’s Red over Tableware- No Oxide clay, cone 10. I upped the EPK from 5.4% to 8.4% to stiffen up the glaze for cone 10 firing.

Nuka is an ash glaze.  Check out “Ash Glazes” by Phil Rogers for some great recipes and info on ashes.  Nuka’s are so awesome that they deserve an entirely different blog post, so I’ll just give you the rundown on the recipe I’ve developed over about 2 years.  I get wood ashes from a friend with a wood stove and dry sift them through 12 mesh, then again through 40 mesh.  The glaze recipe changes with the type of wood ash and the sifting process, but here is my current cone 10 recipe…although it’s likely to change because right now it looks a lot better at cone 11:

Firing is another crucial component to Copper Reds.  Currently I fire in a large natural gas kiln with about 30 cubic feet of stackable space in about 10-11 hours.  I essentially use John Britt’s Reduction 1 firing cycle with a few tweaks.  I fire oxidation until cone 010 drops (about 1700 degrees F) and then do 30 minutes of heavy reduction- the kiln usually stalls in temp.  Then, I fire in mild to medium reduction until cone 10 is very soft.  I’d say more reduction is better than less here. I’ve yet to see adverse effects from over-reducing but I have gotten green from under-reducing.  Lastly, I open the damper and put the kiln into straight oxidation for 30 minutes, until cone 10 drops and 11 is soft- then shut down with the damper closed.  Robert Tichane writes about the importance of peak temp. oxidation for bright reds, and I’ve seen great results with this technique.

Now go mix up some glaze and start chasing the red!

Coil building was one of the first pottery techniques I learned, but it’s not something I do everyday or even every month. I like to use coil building for HUGE pots that are too big to throw.

I generally throw the bottom of the pot as big as I can, usually with a 20-40 pound lump of clay. The image on the left shows a pot that was thrown from 25 lbs. of clay and about 12 inches high, before I coiled up another 12 inches.

It’s a lot easier to coil a narrow shape than a wide shape, as wider pots tend to get off-center and want to collapse. I add the coils on top of each other by pinching the new coil into the clay below. My thumb leaves an interesting pattern from this process, and I generally keep this texture as decorative banding lines in the large jars. The image on the bottom left shows the coils after they have been smoothed together. You can see how the smoothing process also begins to form the pot’s profile.

   Compared to throwing a pot on the wheel in a matter of minutes, coil building is a much slower process.  The profile of the pot forms over a matter of hours, as the 2-3 foot long coils are individually rolled out and successively added on top of each other.  The pot below was made with extremely thick coils to form a planter that will hopefully be able to withstand a freeze in the Minnesota winter.

I started with a 35lb. mound of clay for the bottom, thrown 1.75 inches thick.  I left a hole in the middle for water drainage in the finished planter.  Then, I rolled 2 inch thick coils and paid careful attention when smoothing them together.  The finished planter used about 410 lbs. of clay and with the help of some Red Hot Chili Peppers on shuffle, this pot formed in just under 5 hours.  About 100 lbs. of water will evaporate from the clay before the firing, hopefully over the course of 2-3 months to avoid drying cracks.

Another way I often build BIG pots is by throwing pottery shapes, like large bowls and cylinders, and stacking them on top of each other. These combination stacks grow a lot faster but I tend to make these pieces a bit smaller and reserve coil building for the huge pots.

These pots are generally fired in a wood burning kiln.  I’ve studied and worked out at JD Jorgenson Pottery over the years, and JD’s kiln is perfect for this type of pottery.  The door of his first chamber is about 4 feet wide and 6 feet tall, and the 16 foot long chamber can fit a lot of these jars in each firing.  See my wood fired section for some of my finished wood fired pots, or the JD Jorgenson Pottery website for his work and more info about the wood firing process:  www.jorgensonpottery.com

Copyright 2005 St. John's Pottery

My interest in something I like to call rustic pottery began in high school, after my first visit to the St. John’s Pottery.  I was impressed by the idea of harvesting pottery materials directly from nature, but even more blown away by the colors and surfaces achieved by Richard Bresnahan and his apprentices.  I bought the book Body of Clay, Soul of Fire and it sat across from my pottery wheel for the rest of my senior year.  Richard’s pottery was glazed naturally by wood ashes and flame that floated through the 87 foot long kiln, painting the pottery over the course of a 10 day wood firing.  I tried to replicate his glazes and surfaces in our small electric kiln at Xavier High School and this made for some bright colors, but I was thirsty for the juicy wood fired surfaces.

I finally got to experience the use of natural materials during my freshman and sophomore years at CSB/SJU, interning at JD Jorgenson Pottery.  JD, a former apprentice at the St. John’s Pottery, taught me how to use natural clays in both pottery and kiln building.  We built a 3 chamber wood-kiln over 30 feet long and fired thousands of pots in over a dozen firings.  JD’s kiln produced a huge variety of wood-fired surfaces, so I busted out as many little cups as I could to put them in every nook and cranny of the kiln.  Most pottery was loaded as just raw clay, and each firing taught me more about how flame and wood ashes paint the clay surface.

Even my advisor and ceramics professor, Sam Johnson, was interested in wood firing during his 4 years of my undergrad that he spent firing mostly in gas kilns.  Sam built a wood kiln at the University of Minnesota Morris, which fired he his work in occasionally; however, his gas fired pottery (he called it his “whiteware”) was meant to be shown with his dark, wood fired surfaces. Sam’s process really motivated my interest in gas firing, and his critiques of my glazeware helped me find parallels with my wood fired work.

The wood fired surface continued to influence my pottery for the remainder of college and shows up in my current work.  Even with glazed pottery that’s fired in an electric or gas kiln, I look for glazes with rustic colors, surface qualities, and variation that occurs during the firing.  Copper Red glazes provide deep, intense color that reminded me of the bright colors and asymmetrical patterns that Richard achieves on his pottery.  The Nuka glaze utilizes local wood ash as the main glaze ingredient, and the ashes make for juicy surfaces with rustic tones.  I brush iron onto the glaze, which drips during the firing as gold and brown streaks as it reacts with the wood ashes at 2300 degrees F.

I’m still amazed how elemental pottery can be: water, clay, wood, and fire are used to make tableware for everyday use, and the earthen materials create a rustic, earthen aesthetic.  Wood firing taught me to give up some control and let the process speak.  The pottery you eat and drink from at the Local Blend is fired in a gas or electric kiln, but it’s influence by the wood fired process and surface.

Jimi Hendrix, one of the most legendary guitarist and revolutionary rock musician,  also had a stick in the philosopher bonfire.

Jimi and his guitar is on fire!

A transcending quote by the legend goes as follows, “I used to live in a room full of mirrors; all I could see was me. I take my spirit and I crash my mirrors, now the whole world is here for me to see.” In our room full of mirrors and billboard postered walls, can we ever see the truth?  Can we go beyond Target plastic ware and Wally World knock-off ceramics (obviously made by the cold, steely machinery).  Grab your plastic tuberware sandwich containers, rubber molded cups, imitation ceramic coffee mugz and hurl them into the mirrors, bad luck will not follow, the witch Petronilla de Meath gave me her word.

On another note: Live music is a transcendental experience not only for the listener or audience, but also for the artists performing.  Even though set lists are composed of songs found on the album, leaks of human error spill out – every once and a while – filling into the ear drums of the crowd.  However, these errors don’t lead listeners to delirious convulsions and contortions, but rather they melt into an art of improvisation.  Temporally, these “out of cue” moments become stored in the mind and bore more meaning and mass into the music, the artist, and the band; rather than, per say, a flawless perfected show that exactly replicates every down stroke, note, rhythm, and harmony. (man, doesn’t that sound like a machine).  Look at some handmade ceramics and taste the difference.

Pai Mei

Every artist recognizes the difference between mistakes and “works of trash.”  Most will smell different than a Jackson Pollock or Max Ernst piece of work; for the most part they would smell like an old dirty pair of shoes that have had some Zombie foot spending its time decomposing and sitting idle and motionless…you gotta trust me, even a former president saw the Zombies as a real threat.  But to learn from these “works of trash” and move forward, can provide a lesson that Pai Mei would generously dish out to any of his disciples.  There is no free lunch, and the waves of T.V. infomercials will tell you differently; but, then again, who would believe a testimony made by sweat-scaled lizard waiting to steal your eggs of the future.

Mistakes are not on anyone’s menu, but they happen to be served sometimes with a large glass of iron stained well-water.  Cherrico Pottery has had it’s fare share of catastrophes but cracked platters and bubbly pots are just a couple…hundred fallen soldiers along life’s warpath.  Too much energy in the wrong direction and you’ll be swimming with the fishes, or on clouds of Surrealism, as the forever 27 crew found out all too soon.

The universe might be named after a candy bar, but does it taste just as its advertised?  All the nicks, dings, dents, chipped out pieces left by the past are a reminder of “that one time…”  The Local Blend coffee shop is an outlet for Cherrico Pottery.  Serving its delicatessen with a side of ceramic slung pottery.  By natural events, handmade coffeeware is dinged up daily!  Even though you might stumble across a chip or 2 on your mug, don’t fear the flaws.  Like scars on your skin, these unavoidable tattoos reflect the life-history of the mug and it’s journey through the Blend.

Photo by Jenny Birkhofer

Don’t plaster up the hole in the hallway wall – the result of playing catch with a softball inside.  That faded and shabby concert shirt you have from the 1980 Van Halen tour, “World Invasion: Party Tll’ You Die,” should be framed, or just keep on rocking it on Casual Friday.  You spend your life developing flaws in your character, why fix em’?

Art has looked nature in the eye, held out fist fulls of gold, in order to bargain for nature’s physchotrophic prowess and phenomena. Just enough gold has been traded in order to cast lost secrets of the elements of design into the light. Simple organic replication sets a flame to any piece of art especially when it is held steadily in a crazed art enthusiasts gaze, as seen in Joel’s 1st place piece in the current exhibition at the Paramount Arts Center, Light/Shadows:

"Don Reitz, Ernst Haeckel" Wood Fired Stoneware, 28" x 16"

Titled after 2 artists that inspired the piece, Joel spun the wheel and formed organic shapes before assembling this stacked vessel form, in a similar fashion as Don Reitz- an American Master of Abstract Expressionism.  View his genius interpretations of teapots, in this 26 inch tall “Teastack” at the Lacoste Gallery, in Massachusetts:

Don Reitz, "Teastack" Wood Fired Stoneware, 26" x 14" x 13"

Reitz succumbs to the Abstract Expressionist process, skewing pottery forms and ending at a new beginning.  Joel’s sculptural vessel is more removed from vessel based Abstract Expressionism due to it’s biological sense of order.  It’s counterpart was also accepted to this show, entitled “Stinkhorn” because of it’s reference to the wild mushrooms that seem to grow out of another realm.

With biological abstractions that maintain a sense of stability, both of Joel’s sculptures beckon similarities to the nautilus shell.  The nautilus, a thin spiral shell-bound organism, can be found replicated in countless pieces of art, culture, history and science. Illustrations of Ernst Haeckel embody it’s allure.

http://www.johnchiappone.com/hum_int.html

In some forms, the nautilus may be a mind bending illusion that petrifies peoples minds to a trance state; to others, a sign of order and balance.  Its shell is a medallion to biotic art and organic designs. Its meaning – perfection, or some call it “the western dream.” A steady stare into the shells mesmerizing spiral can juice out phsychotrophic alterations. What does the spiral mean? Is it a path, a line, going up and out or down and in? Are we in the fade with lock jaw monsters – nipping at our gullets – broadcasting from billboards and T.V. infomercials. Where is truth in such a mirage of design?

The meaning to the nautilus is possibly a far out conclusion- sort of like the meaning to/of life (which happens to be the number 42. By the way the number 42 is a unique number having varying properties such as being a primary pseudo-perfect number, or the angle (measured in decimal degrees) of a rainbow.) Maybe finding the meaning to the the nautilus is the backwards approach to the answer. Artists see beyond the square and see a cube, Ceramicists see beyond a cube and see its history in time.  Similarly, artist Alex Grey makes mind bending, cerebral art that links a viewer to another dimension, while connecting with so many historical landmarks.

On the other hand, ceramic mammoth monolithic vessels carry a shape, physical texture, and an awareness to function over the centuries.

Why the nautilus? Why not. The thing about placing a design is that its jigsaw must fit into the universe of things. Looking at Cherrico’s placement of the nautilus design you can tell that its placement was premeditated and ordered to fit – or – the free-flowing rock/funk enthusiast has just let things go to the wind:

If you were to ask a Nautilus, “what is the meaning of your shell?” it may vividly responded that, “its design is perfect for the function.” Ceramics and the nautilus are a marriage of earth and life. If one were to divorce the other, well… that’s for another episode.

The kiln at JD’s place was made from the shell of an old electric kiln that I salvaged from a high school in Sartell, MN.  They kept the electric box, so JD cut 2 small holes in the bottom of the soft brick to make burner ports.  Firing with gas instead of electricity will also let us test reduction firings very similarly to larger gas kilns.  These practice firings willhelp me for adapting to the Paramount Arts Center gas kiln, which I’m firing for the first time this Monday.  Fresh pots should be out by Art in Bayfront Park the next weekend in Duluth!

My first firing in this kiln was actually the second time JD fired it, and we got some really nice results.  The glaze fluxed out pretty well at cone 10 (that was our goal) but the bottom of the kiln only reached cone 9.  Also, even at cone 10 there were bubbles present in the glaze.  The Nuka contains wood ashes, which are high in alkali.  Something about the alkali cause bubbling in the glaze at high temperature, and the finished pottery had sharp holes and pits.  Problems like this are common when working with earthen materials, but the struggle is well worth the rustic tones and philosophies behind working from a waste stream system.

Here’s a few finished pots from the 2nd kiln firing, as well as some underfired ones.  The pieces on top are almost perfect, except for the bubbling where the glaze pooled.

JD and I learned a lot from these pots, but with a 22 hour firing into the night I wasted a lot of time and energy with the stalled out kiln.  The barometric pressure changes every night, and this generally makes it difficult to gain temperature.  Once the sun went down, we were at the mercy of the kiln to go at it’s own pace.  Night firing makes for some cool pictures, but a miserable next morning.

Right now I’m in the middle of the 3rd firing and the kiln is at cone 5 (almost 2200 degrees F).  Once it gets to cone 10, I plan to soak for at least 2 hours, so the bubbles will pop and the glaze will seal over.  At 6 hours in, we’re really close to peak temp and the soak period so things are looking good…definitely better than another firing into the weee hours of the morning uuhg…and hopefully the pots will turn out looking close to this good!

I’ve never been a fan of tedious work that takes a lot of concentration.  I’ve made tedious work even since freshman year in college, but I like to work fast.  I made this one for a cardboard project in our Intro to 3D Design class.  It was partly the result of a whole lot of Smashing Pumpkins.

In Spring 2009, I went to Northern Arizona University to see 6 artists at a 2 day workshop. Don Reitz really stood out in my head because of his style of working and because his sculptures seemed really fresh.  His process reminded me of drippy paintings by Jackson Pollock.  This is my favorite way to make artwork: fast and direct.  With Abstract Expressionism, you go with the flow and surrender to the process.

For me, the Red Hot Chili Peppers embody this artwork in their music.  Anthony Kiedis belts out catchy vocals and lyrics hidden in random sentences that would be grammatical nightmares.   Flea’s bass lines have a huge presence in every song, and they meshed perfectly with John Frusciante’s melodies and Chad Smith’s loud, fast beats- good luck finding a drummer that hits his drums harder. The band writes each song from jamming- just rockin out together and letting the music flow.  With Frusciante now pursuing his solo career, he trained in little Josh Klinghoffer to live up to his legacy.  After releasing their new single I’d agree with Rolling Stone that their “juicy funk-pop groove” isn’t going anywhere.  I have a feeling I’ll still be throwing pottery and sculpture to the Chili Peppers for decades to come, hopefully with the same energy embodied by their music, Abstract Expressionists and my Mindscape sculptures.

Take it from Dave Grohl, drummer of Them Crooked Vultures and lead singer/guitarist of Foo Fighers.  He rocks with the best of them and knows there are few things in this world that can get you going like a heavy rock song.  Well, maybe a FRESH POT!! 

As of recent, Joel Cherrico has moved from the residency at Saint Ben’s to another studio located in the heart of downtown St. Cloud, The Paramount. Saint Ben’s has been mother’s milk to Cherrico pottery, a refuge for this clay slinging potter, however, as the tides change and the phases of the moon advance, so must Cherrico pottery. The Paramount will become the fortress from where the clay of the earth turns into functional vessels. Before bidding the Saint Ben’s Studio adue, a few projects for his Artist Residency were fired in the kilns at Saint Ben’s. The first included in total: 300 modest slim formed Communion cups, 2 immaculate pouring vessels, 2 pitchers and 2 bowls.

The other project was made for a Saint John’s Groom and Saint Ben’s Bride. Included was a 6 person tableset (6 medium plates, 6 dinner plates, 6 coffee mugs and 6 bowls) for a wedding Registry. Check it out on Etsy- it’s like Ebay, but entirely handmade (entirely awesome):

http://www.etsy.com/people/joleneandjohn

The new shift to The Paramount will produce new work from the same ilk. The artists’ community found at the Paramaount will bring forth a new threshold to the ever evolving techniques, styles, and form of Cherrico ceramics.

Cherrico’s ceramics can be viewed and purchased at the Paramount Gallery. On the tables of crystal glass, vessels and forms of all kinds sit in await of peoples attention. The Milky Way galaxy swirls of glaze draw people in from the main drag in downtown St. Cloud. Mugz are adorned with a Nuka glaze that begs for you to pour a bold hot coffee into it. And the serving bowls, wide deep as the Continental Divide basin, are ready for use at a summer event at the lake cabin or a get together in your home. Come in, stop on by, check out this display of pottery, and by chance you may meet the artist himself at the Paramount Gallery
The styles that are hatching from the new Residency at The Paramount Center for the Arts are creative and breakthrough. Shapes and forms are being experimented on to best honor the suite of Ceramic enthusiasts. Working all through day, and into the night, the artist plugs into the funky cerebral music and starts another fresh pot of coffee, in order to find forms that can jigsaw worldly tastes.