Three Hares, six-inch, $75
Cook Inlet glacial clay art tile with collagraph printed hares in x-ray style of coastal Inuqiaq. Three hares, three ears, yet each hare has two ears! A while back I made a large woodcut (about 3-1/2′ x 5′ – playing card aspect) using a sheet of plywood that required a steamroller to print an image of three hares similar to this tile, and titled the Three of Hares. It was the third steamroller print event put on in Anchorage. The idea for the three hares came about as a piece in a local group show with a theme about St. Francis and a hare that leads other animals to their respective heavens (put together by James Riordan, an assistant professor at the University of Alaska, Anchorage). The image of three hares was in some medieval monastaries and represented the trinity, but of course, the original design is much older, Etruscan, and historians don’t know what significance it had. Someone referred to the tile as the three rabbi’s.
Tag: folk tale
Revised Fox & Hare
Fox & Hare, 6″ x 6″ x 3/8″, $75
One villages tale of why night follows day. The fox is the moon and the hare is the sun and they are in this continuous chase through the sky, and that is why night follows day. This is a revision of an earlier design which had the hare sort of upside down. The collagraph plate was about seven years old and wearing out, so it was a good time to make a new printing plate with a slightly different layout. The xray style is indiginous to the coastal areas of Alaska.
The red is new, it is a majolica base with red stain and without the opacifier. Also new is the temuko gold for the background. The clay is from the mudflats next to Anchorage, Alaska.
6″ Copper Plate Etching on Clay
Tile on the left and copper plate etching/engraving on the right. Click on the copper plate image to see a better quality scan.
The copper plate is an engraving that is used to print onto the clay. I have a large etching press that I use to print on the clay like if it were paper. I don’t have a problem with the clay curling during firing since I make my own clay body and have added stuff to the clay body to counter the tendence of flat tiles to warp and crack.
The image on the right of the tile is a white whale, the center is a half man half seal, and on the left is a swan turning into a salmon. The three are samples of Alaska native art that were once drawn on the bottom of wood food bowls or on skins.
Halibut Man
6″ x 6″ x 3/8″ Halibut Man, $75
X-ray style shaman in his animal spirit form, the halibut.
Collagraph print onto Cook Inlet glacial clay and oxidation fired to cone 6. I use mat boards with cut out designs to impress images into clay, a raised inked line is waxed and acts as a separator to the different glazes.
Sedna
Sedna is the Inuit Goddess of the Sea
8″ x 8″ x 3/8″, Cook Inlet Glacier clay, multiglazed, cone 6 oxidation.
$130.
A small sub planet was named after Sedna recently. A google search will turn up lots of stories related to Sedna. She is the mother of the whales, seals, and fish. If you see sea weed out at sea, they say it is Sedna’s hair. A young lady bought one of the Sedna tiles and told me how she drown as a little girl and some paddling guy saw this interesting looking sea weed and when he grabbed it, he pulled her up and was surprised, but he did revive her. Cool.
Fox & Hare
6″ x 6″ x 3/8″ multiglazed, Cook Inlet glacial clay, cone six oxidation. Caribbean sea green background. This is one village’s tale of why night follows day. The fox is the moon and the hare is the sun and they are in this continuous chase through the sky, so that is why night follows day. Done in the x-ray style common on the coast of western and northern Alaska.
$75