Occasionally on this site I will be posting about other artists that I meet who’s work I really admire. I want to start with Guadalupe Robinson, a ceramicist here at Lowe Mill. I introduced myself to Guadalupe because I know her son from Montevallo, and because I recognized her pottery from some art festivals I have been to. Her work is incredibly distinct and unique. She makes large wheel thrown vessels with incredibly precise patterns and textures that beg to be touched.
The craftsmanship of these pots is very impressive to me, but I think what I find most impressive is the amount of time the artist spent finding and perfecting the formula that makes pieces like this possible. Anyone who has worked with ceramics knows from painful experience that it is a volatile and unpredictable science experiment. Pieces explode in the kiln, glazes come out the wrong color or pattern, and there is rarely a sense of security in knowing what will result from a firing. It is a major accomplishment just to throw a standard pot and properly glaze it, so I can’t imagine the amount of careful time and work Guadalupe invested in creating this unique style.
What really blows me away though is the fact that Guadalupe uses glaze only on the inside of her vessels. The colors that you see on the outsides are actually carefully mixed clays that she layers on in different stages. The red skin of those apples in the image above isn’t achieved by paint or glaze. The artist actually figured out what mixture of different stoneware clays would achieve that color after firing. That’s painstaking stuff that should appeal to the geeky side of every ceramicist.
Recently I was able to trade one of my paintings for the piece in the image below. I think I got the better end of the deal.
