Potters Ready for Artists Market This Weekend

The following press release feature comes from the Clay Arts Guild:

The burst of green grass on Mount Diablo and colorful wildflowers on the hillsides stimulate gardeners to think about brightening their own yards and patios with plants, water features and garden decoration.

But where can they get unique pots and garden ware in which to put those plants?

The Clay Arts Guild will focus on outdoor garden pots and garden decoration at the Artists’ Market spring sale Friday through Sunday. A reception with live music, light refreshments and a flower-arranging demo kicks off the sale from 5-9 p.m. Friday at the Civic Park Studio, 1313 Civic Dr. The sale continues 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday and April 29, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday at the Civic Park Studio. The art lovers will be everywhere on the sidewalks of downtown Walnut Creek as the Downtown Business Association also holds its Fine Arts and Crafts Festival Saturday and Sunday on North Main Street and Locust Street (the latter will be closed to vehicle traffic for several blocks).

Among the potters demonstrating hand-building techniques and selling her work is Ellen Sachtchale of Clayton. Sachtchale began teaching classes for Walnut Creek Civic Arts in 1999 after she moved to the Bay Area from North Carolina.

“I fell in love with clay when I started taking classes at age 14,” said Sachtchale. “I can throw (pots on a wheel) but I prefer hand-building. It’s more creative. You’re not limited to keeping it round and I like texturizing the pot’s surface.”
Sachtchale has sold her work at Valley Arts Gallery, the Firehouse Gallery in Pleasanton and Mt. Diablo Nursery. She regularly teaches pottery workshops in Mendocino.

It’s easy to find manufactured pots at garden stores or big box stores, but Sachtchale said she prefers hand-built ones.

“It’s expressive,” she said. “It personalizes an environment. In a world where there is so much technology and traffic, having handmade pots shows their personhood. It keeps the world alive.”

Walnut Creek artist Dinah King will have a variety of her works in the show. King is known for her technique of staining her clay with different colors, layering it and then throwing it all together.

“I call it my hurricane effect. I guess I’m in my chaos period,” she laughs. Actually her technique, known as neriage, was first used in Egypt around 2000 B.C. and perfected in early modern Japan before being discovered by Europe and America in the 20th Century.

“The technique creates a marbling effect that’s really very pretty,” King explains. “I experiment with lots of different colors and part of the fun is not knowing exactly how it will turn out. Although it’s an ancient technique, not many artists use it around here. At Clay Arts, there are just two of us.”

Before King discovered neriage, a trip to the glaze room with her newly fired bowl created a great deal of stress. “I used to go into the glaze room and just go crazy trying to choose a color from all the stains available. Now I take my multi-colored art work and just apply a clear stain,” says King.

Another potter whose unique wares will be for sale is Clarice Judah of Orinda. 
Judah focuses on creating pots using salt fire and raku techniques. Raku-fired pottery is taken out of the kiln while still red-hot and then put in a metal container with burning material such as leaves. The result is a smoky finish to the glaze.

Salt firing uses common table salt in the high temperature part of firing the pot. The sodium mixes with silicate in the clay to create a glossy finish in browns, blues or purple.

“Salt fire is very organic,” said Judah. “You never know what you’re going to get.”

With part of the proceeds of the sale going to CAG, Judah said she is motivated to help the sale so that Civic Arts can replace an aging salt kiln. 
“Walnut Creek Civic Arts expects CAG to pay half the costs of the kiln,” she said.

As a CAG member since 1972, she has seen the Civic Arts programs and the guild grow tremendously.

“I remember when we used to bring a trailer to set up in front City Hall for our sales,” she said. “Now we have 300 people a week going through the studio” for classes and open studio work.

Mom's inspiration

Also participating in the April 27-29 show is Mary-Leigh Miller. The Moraga resident credits her mother with getting her started in clay. “She had taken up ceramics at some point while I was off at college and carried this interest to our family summer home in Southeastern Ontario, where she set up an outdoor studio,” Miller says. “Her equipment included two kick wheels (hand built by my father) that sat out under the trees overlooking a lake. She mixed her own clay and glazes from dry ingredients and fired everything in a small electric kiln. During the first summers I spent up there, I started playing around with throwing and hand building. This eventually led to taking ceramics classes, workshops and getting involved at local arts centers in the various places I’ve lived, culminating with my move to the Walnut Creek area in the mid-‘80s.”

Miller, like many artists, finds herself drawn to clay because of its tactile qualities and plasticity. “The expressiveness I can achieve with clay inspires me to try as many different methods as I can, but I have mostly limited myself to functional pottery. I enjoy both wheel throwing and hand building,” she adds.
“Creating the form is what I like doing the best; clay in its wet stage is what turns me on,” Miller continues. “I have always found the glazing process a bit of a chore, which is one reason I enjoy salt firing. Utilizing this technique keeps the glazing to a minimum and lets the vaporized salt do most of the job. On the other hand, I’ve always liked Raku because of the immediacy of the process – seeing my finished pot 30 minutes or less after it has gone in the kiln!”