What began as an interesting exploration many years ago has become a continuing part of my creative output. They are called Tea-cans. Each vessel is an industrial marriage between a teapot and a gas can. Inspired by petrol and kerosene containers, my forms possess all the attributes of a teapot. There is a spout, a lidded opening, a pouring handle, and it is capable of holding liquid. Finally, the Tea-can appears to have been manufactured for industrial use. Despite this, the Tea-can manages to be attractive. This says much about the influences inherit in our industrialized society. Our culture has evolved a unique aesthetic that gives objects, like a Tea-can, a sense of acceptable engineered beauty, balance and design respectability.
The construction process is long, challenging and labor intensive. The Tea-Can sculptures are thrown, altered and assembled from porcelain. The assembled piece is dried slowly for approximately one month. The porcelain walls are made to a universal thickness of about 1/8 inch. Some parts are thrown on the potter’s wheel, some are hand built from a lump of clay. There are no shortcuts. Constructing the clay artwork takes eight to ten hours from raw clay to fully assembled green ware.
Graphics and colors are all glazed by hand. No decals are used. For each glaze color needed, I create a paper mask. Logos and text are created from these hand cut stencils. This is temporarily glued to the ceramic surface. The glaze is applied with a sponge on the bare bisque surface. When the glaze is dry, I peel away the paper mask and apply another mask for another color. This continues until the graphics are complete. The aged patina comes from careful application of additional glaze layers. Glazing takes about 4 hours.
The artwork is raku fired at least once but sometimes two or even three times. Because of the construction process I have developed, I rarely lose a piece during firing. This is great news because I have already invested at least 12 hours in constructing and glazing the Tea-can.