Ghosts in the Works

I used to sculpt these ghost/spectre forms on the tops of my raku vessels, as well as some highfire stoneware gallery pieces. I'm now picking up this idea where I left off those years ago, hopefully taking the motif further, because I really enjoy the gestural nature of the ambiguous figures clad in flowing drapery. While the fleeting images these mysterious beings might otherwise exist only in our peripheral vision, I'm capturing them nearly permanently in fired clay. For me, the more spontaneous, impressionistically vague essences develop in the process of their creation, allowing them to be much looser than my usually well-refined figurative work. Clay is such a unique fluid and the firing of these beings freezes them in time for us all to experience the same moment.

A few other freshly thrown vessels, intended for raku firing: