Pinched form

Jane Waller’s smooth raku-fired organic forms are pinched from a ball of subtlety stained clay. Her soft colour palette derives inspiration from Egyptian frescoes. The shapes seen above the carinated edge are pressed into the surface once the form is complete, the star seen here is a recurrent motif in Waller’s pots. The taut form is further animated by its pinholed surface and burnished patina which are a result of the raku-firing process. Waller describes the surface richness of raku as being, ‘not dissimilar to a pebble smoothed and aged by the sea, or a piece of Roman glass dug up to reveal rainbow iridescence’. [1]

Sim Panaser, August 2020

[1] Jane Waller, ‘Colour in Raku Bodies’, Ceramic Review, 44 November/December 1988), 32-25 (p. 32).