Celebrating Life’s Great Milestones with Porcelain

As you look around my website you’ll see a representation of the porcelain artwork I’ve created over the years.  The art that you see on this site for the most part represents the early stages of my artistic expression in ceramics. To a great extent these works are what I refer to as my pop art porcelain – ceramic plates and tiles based on 1950s and 60s comics similar to those that inspired the American pop artist Roy Lichtenstein. 

You’ll also see a virtual flower bed of my beloved daffodils, my favorite flower because of the ever-renewing energy they represent every Spring, signs of life and light and happiness emerging from the last of the Winter doldrums. 

Growing into New Expressions

The Fall of 2019 is a special time in my life, as it’s when I first release to the public the newest pieces of porcelain artwork that have been forming in my mind and my hands for quite some time. The past few years have been challenging ones for me personally, professionally, and artistically. See my Shattered series of plates and tiles for one example.

These years have been a time of introspection, exploration, testing, failure, setbacks, and gradual successes finally resulting in a new artistic expression that I love and hope you will too:   Porcelain + Gold.

It is a new line of custom heirloom scrolls designed to celebrate life’s special moments… when we get married, when we bring a new life into the world, when we celebrate anniversaries or birthdays and other significant life achievements that are greater than a simple piece of paper. 

A Personal Beginning

And that’s actually why Porcelain + Gold has a very personal beginning story for me, why I went through the learning and discovery steps to create these heirloom scrolls in the first place. My wife and I were married on a small beach during a family vacation to the Bahamas, with a ring of seaweed as our chapel and a piece of driftwood as our altar. As opposed to wedding ceremonies in which “kissing the bride” is the big moment that seals the deal, in the Bahamas the significant part of the ceremony was signing the marriage registry… a piece of paper that we were supposed to get a copy of when we returned home but for some reason never received.

Over the years I’d thought about getting a copy of the marriage registry so I could frame it and give that to my wife as a special gift on our anniversary, and then I thought “hey, why not use my powers of porcelain artistry to craft something that exceeds the bounds of a simple piece of paper?” Why not create something entirely new that no one else has made, something that is as precious and rare as the love that we share?

And thus began my journey into crafting thin sheets of clay into a porcelain representation of vintage parchment scrolls. I rolled delicate lace into the edges to create a tattered feel. I experimented with different applications of text and flourishes until I found a method of burning iron oxide into the glaze that results in a beautiful burnished burnt umber. And I knew from the very start that I wanted the piece to have a touch of gold and went through many iterations of unsuccessfully applying gold around the text and along the flourishes on the interior of the piece until I found the right application of actual 22kt gold to the outer edge of the scroll.

After many, many experiments, I finally opened the kiln and the porcelain and gold scroll sitting in front of me took my breath away and I knew that was the one. It became the gift for my wife, and it’s the porcelain art that I knew I wanted to share with you.

Launch Time

I launched this new line of Porcelain + Gold custom heirloom scrolls on October 4^th, 2019, at an art show held at Eclipse Salon in Asheville, NC. 

The work commemorates the times in our lives of light and happiness, of laughter and love and sparkling days. If you provide me with the information you want, I’ll make one for you.

The future is bright, and I hope you will celebrate it with me!