I love clay.  It is a most miraculous medium and I have been fascinated with it since kindergarten when we made hand print ashtrays.  But I am not media monogamous.  In fact I am promiscuous with my use of different media.  I will use whatever works the best for the effect I am trying to achieve. 

Most of my sculptures have bases.  I like to put the characters in a specific context and having a base frames them, much like a photograph.  I think of each sculpture as a snapshot in time. But I don't like being boxed in, so I often have part of the sculpture break through the frame by extending beyond the base.  I feel that this brings the viewer into the image and makes the experience more personal.

Pieces are sculpted in clay in different sections with some parts attached and some left separate for ease in shipping.   When the sculptures are bone dry, I often apply Terra Sigilatta with various stains to some parts.  I prefer this to a glaze when I am looking for a matt surface.  The sculptures are then bisque fired to Cone 06.

My earlier work was low fired with a technique called Naked raku.  This is a lovely process on pots and sculptural forms that have smooth curves and somewhat flat surfaces.  It is far less conducive to detailed figures with their extreme angles and sharp surfaces, so it is primarily used on pottery.  I loved the look so much that I used it anyway, even though it was difficult to do a raku firing on detailed and delicate sculptures.   In many ways I compromised on the construction of my sculptures in order to have them be able to endure the rigors of the raku/reduction process.   Another problem with raku is that the work is not vitrified and therefore very delicate. Shipping it was so problematic that even with the most attentive packing I would have breakage.  This inspired me to figure out a new technique that would replicate the look of Naked Raku to some degree.

The technique that I developed is call "Naked Fauxku" because it is naked (sans glaze) yet it is a faux process that attempts to emulate the look without actually doing raku.  This technique is done in an electric kiln and is high fired.  It doesn't look exactly like the traditional naked raku, but it is very similar and conveys the look that I was seeking.

After the first firing I  mask off the areas that I want to have glaze accents. Then I glob a thick slip all over the piece.  The slip dries and creates cracks.  I use a heat gun to control the amount of cracks in specific areas.

I then take an airbrush and spray into the cracks with a mixture of black Mason Stain and Terra Sigilatta. When  dry, I use a metal dental pick to start to knock off the slip.  I then add my cone 6 glazes where I previously masked off with tape and fire to cone 6. 

Sometimes I do a third firing with a silver luster to cone 019 for some metallic accents.