View Larger Image “Everyday Dishes,” thrown and slab-built stoneware, fired to Cone 10 in a Minnesota Flat Top car kiln, old wire dish drainer, by Ellen Currans. Photo: Doreen L. Wynja.

March 27, 2007

The Art of Everyday Ceramic Dishes

by Ceramic Arts Daily | Read Comments (8)

 

Ellen Currans’ life changed on a day in 1960 when a truck arrived at her home to deliver a one-speed pottery wheel built from a square, green Maytag washing machine. A ceramic kiln quickly followed. Those unexpected gifts kicked off a ceramic arts career that started at yard sales and continues today in a full-blown pottery studio in Currans’ home.

Ellen’s specialty is slab-built ceramic dishes with impressed textures; she makes 2,000-3,000 pieces a year. Ellen decided early on that selling to galleries or wholesaling was not the way she wanted to market her work. From the beginning she chose to keep her prices reasonable enough that people use her work for everyday dishes and buy more as time goes on. And with most pieces in the $20–$60 range, customers can maintain that loyalty.

But it’s not only price that brings customers back. The pots and platters make sense in the lives of the people who use them. They impart dignity and beauty to the presentation of food.

Ellen’s own love of cooking and serving food, and her deeply hospitable nature, have been as much a part of the formation of the aesthetic of her work as have been any pottery classes she has attended.

Her work is also unique in that it is at ease in many surroundings; it is contemporary in form and decoration, as well as complementary to the Craftsman tradition that is a part of many Pacific Northwest homes.

Currans grew up in the Okanogan Valley of north central Washington. While studying art at the University of Washington, she became deeply impressed by and attracted to the new Scandinavian designs that were finding their way into home furnishings, and the simple, clean lines of Northwest home architecture. Texture, natural materials, and functionality were at the heart of the new aesthetic, and that has been a major influence on her clay art.

She and her husband Tom settled in Oregon in 1965, and a few years later, Cedar Pond Pottery was born.

Ellen’s pottery studio is uniquely orderly, clean and welcoming. In the main room the walls are lined with books, periodicals, and Ellen’s notebooks from more than 45 years of working with clay. Other shelves are filled with tools and patterns and slowly drying new work. There’s a woodstove, a bed for Shino the pug and a small kitchen that used to double as ceramic glazing space. Behind a central desk and wall of books is a tidy area with two wheels, and an adjacent space with a motorized slab roller It’s here that Ellen forms her most individual work.

The slab roller is surrounded by every imaginable object that a potter might use to make a mark on clay, as well as numerous items used as molds for her textured slab work. Most of these forms are recycled from local thrift and antique stores. There are glass, wood and plastic trays, bowls of every shape and size, and hundreds of textured paper patterns that Ellen uses to impart imagery to clay.

Ellen has mentored countless potters and has given local workshops during her career. She regularly greets visitors at her home, and she shares her knowledge freely. All fortunate enough to visit will see another way to make a good life; a life in clay.

 

Attention Senior/Emeritus Members

ACerS is offering a special reduced meeting registration rate of $320 to Senior and Emeritus members who are attending MS&T 2007.  The registration deadline is August 31, 2007.  Click here to download the Senior/Emeritus MS&T Registration Form.

 

 

The stoneware that Currans uses for slabs  is stiffer than that for throwing, so Ellen must whack the pug down with a mallet in preparation for rolling. The clay is encased in canvas and the motor drones on the slab roller as it presses the clay flat. Ellen smoothes the surface with a squeegee and brushes it with cornstarch. She then carefully places a precut piece of textured paper on the slab. This will define the area that will be the center of the tray or platter. The slab is passed again through the slab roller, registering the design on the surface of the clay. For some forms a rubber stamp or stencil adds complexity.

A mold form that fits the proportions of the textured design has been brushed with WD-40 to keep the clay from sticking to the form and to allow her to gently move the slab until the design is precisely located in the form. Laying a thin plastic film over the clay, she works the slab into the form using a pounce (a cup or so of fine grog held by a rubber band in a small square of tightly woven sheeting). This allows her to press the clay gently into the mold without distorting the freshly textured surface. She meticulously bevels the rim of the piece at the edge of the form to ensure that the clay releases as it dries and shrinks.

Ellen finishes some pieces with thrown rims and handles, and keeps all works under plastic film for several days before drying them very slowly in a damp cupboard. After bisque firing, she applies glazes that will accentuate the texture by breaking over edges and pooling slightly in low spots.