Art by Osmosis
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by Courtney Marchesani
The apple may not fall far from the tree, but the fruit may take time to ripen. Homer, Alaska potter Lisa Wood was born to a beatnik mother with artistic interests and a touch of wanderlust. Her mother, Harriet Wood, surrounded her daughter with watercolors, oil paints and ceramics. She infused the Alaskan air with the creative energy she brought with her from her earlier life as an artist in New York City’s Greenwich Village. |
Lisa Wood in her Homer, Alaska studio.
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Lisa absorbed the artistic methods and skills by exposure. Harriet took up pottery in Lisa’s formative years, but until 10 years ago, Lisa didn’t know the feel of clays, wet and malleable, in the palm of her hand. It took years of creative conditioning for Lisa to realize her inner-artist was a potter.
Lisa first took up clay at a throwing class at Pike Place Market in Seattle with her mom. When Lisa moved back to Alaska, this time to Homer, a coastal community with artistic traditions of its own to nurture she found her new found love, clay. To this she added Alaskan pragmatism. Now, all on her own, she cuts ten cords of spruce-beetle ravaged wood from the forest each year to keep the fires of her ‘Fast Freddy’ Kiln burning.
Lisa first took up clay at a throwing class at Pike Place Market in Seattle with her mom. When Lisa moved back to Alaska, this time to Homer, a coastal community with artistic traditions of its own to nurture she found her new found love, clay. To this she added Alaskan pragmatism. Now, all on her own, she cuts ten cords of spruce-beetle ravaged wood from the forest each year to keep the fires of her ‘Fast Freddy’ Kiln burning.
Freddy is a catalyst. The little kiln assists with day-to-day firing and his presence marked a major shift, over four and a half years ago, in Lisa’s investment to refine stoneware pottery. She moved away from using the community chest, the kiln at the local high school, to fire pots on her Homer homestead.
She says proudly, “Fast Freddy’s been fired over ninety times.” He doesn’t hiccup or complain. They work as a team, in an intricate dance of constants, from oxidation to reduction, scorching raw pots into solidified earthenware. Hues of burnt chocolate and dark vanilla tint the smoke-filled base rings of a typical piece. Round saucer-sized clay layer atop clay layer taper into a natural obelisk. A technique known as "the wedge" is used to form the vase. A sturdy S- shaped handle hugs the vessel’s side for easy gripping and a tiny round lid accentuates and closes the fill opening. It is a coffee carafe, holder of long necked Irises, or water pitcher to rest on a picnic table through windy afternoons. Whatever the use, the container is functional and unique, like charcoal forming into a diamond. Lisa credits osmosis, Spruce Pine, and of course her kiln. Freddy, she says, “Is like the microwave of wood firing kilns.”
She says proudly, “Fast Freddy’s been fired over ninety times.” He doesn’t hiccup or complain. They work as a team, in an intricate dance of constants, from oxidation to reduction, scorching raw pots into solidified earthenware. Hues of burnt chocolate and dark vanilla tint the smoke-filled base rings of a typical piece. Round saucer-sized clay layer atop clay layer taper into a natural obelisk. A technique known as "the wedge" is used to form the vase. A sturdy S- shaped handle hugs the vessel’s side for easy gripping and a tiny round lid accentuates and closes the fill opening. It is a coffee carafe, holder of long necked Irises, or water pitcher to rest on a picnic table through windy afternoons. Whatever the use, the container is functional and unique, like charcoal forming into a diamond. Lisa credits osmosis, Spruce Pine, and of course her kiln. Freddy, she says, “Is like the microwave of wood firing kilns.”
Growing up in the arty atmosphere created by her mother, Lisa gained a deep appreciative eye for the esthetic qualities of light, color and texture. She draws her inspirations from Asian influences and traditional methods and uses of earthen pots. Hands-on experience didn’t hurt either. Although her teens were a stratosphere of pottery, she did not study it or take an interest at the time, she says, “I took in a lot by osmosis.” Just being around pottery, the process, breathing it in with the oxygen gives her an edge, “my eyes are always ahead of my hands.”
Not many potters use a wood fired kiln. It is labor intensive and fire can be a finicky servant. Pragmatism led Lisa to wood firing because she had a lot of wood available and “glazing is my least favorite thing to do.” Wood firing eliminates the need to apply a glaze to dried clay. Instead, “you can leave the whole surface bare” and the flames do the rest. As flames lick the pot’s surface, drawing on the exterior, Lisa stokes the kiln fire and takes copious notes. The notes quantify what amount of carbon, smoke, and heat produced. They are a syllabus for an outcome, a synthesis to pore over. If she likes the outcome, she’ll strive to recreate a similar product, but it won’t be exact.
If the whole process sounds laborious, that’s because it is. Firing a group of pots can take several days and half a cord of wood. But for Lisa it’s worth it because what comes out is an original, a Wood original. No two pots are alike because oxidation in the clay body is specific to each clay piece. The fire sucks the oxygen out of the clay forming unique color and pattern. During the reduction phase, as the blaze dampers down, carbon smoke billows and permeates the kiln’s chaotic inner chamber. Reduction creates a landscape of warm tones similar to those embedded in the Earth’s surface; the finest elements and minerals; each piece evokes the landscape of the viewers experience, the dark-grey of silver and iron flecks buried within the crust, the red sand stone cliffs of Sedona, or teal glacial peaks of the Rockies. One vase is a cross-section of nature.
It takes time and tenacity to be a potter. For Lisa and her family it takes sacrifice as well. Her workspace expands into the family’s living space, the kiln and wood chopping and gathering consumes her time. She says she is very fortunate since most aspiring potters start out in chicken coops and various other outbuildings, “I just took over the living room.” Her family is making sacrifices to help build her business and she says, “I have to make pots.”
The milestones continue to add up as the family sacrifices room in their house for Lisa’s workspace, and time spent with them converts to time devoted to the kiln. Then, of course, there’s constant labor in gathering those ten cords of wood. This makes for an arduous task. Although she has a hydraulic wood splitter to ease the load the quantity takes a whole season to split. Her husband lets her off the hook from gathering wood for their home and a beetle infestation in their back wooded lot, left stately spruce trees standing useless. Before she took up pottery Lisa worked for the city of Juneau cutting trails, which helps in her efforts to feed Freddy. Now she uses dead trees to bring life to her pottery.
She credits Jack Walsh and Barbara Holman of Homer for teaching her the ways of working with clay. She worked with them for a long time while using the wood shop in Homer to work on projects, and gain experience. This is the collective spirit of an artist. These days, Homer’s artists are working together to build a community known for its creative energy. Like her mother in Greenwich Village in the ‘60s, Lisa Wood finds herself exploring a fresh new scene.
Lisa Wood Pottery can be found at the following locations:
Bunnell Street Gallery
Ptarmigan Arts
Homer Clay Works
Anchorage Art Gallery
Not many potters use a wood fired kiln. It is labor intensive and fire can be a finicky servant. Pragmatism led Lisa to wood firing because she had a lot of wood available and “glazing is my least favorite thing to do.” Wood firing eliminates the need to apply a glaze to dried clay. Instead, “you can leave the whole surface bare” and the flames do the rest. As flames lick the pot’s surface, drawing on the exterior, Lisa stokes the kiln fire and takes copious notes. The notes quantify what amount of carbon, smoke, and heat produced. They are a syllabus for an outcome, a synthesis to pore over. If she likes the outcome, she’ll strive to recreate a similar product, but it won’t be exact.
If the whole process sounds laborious, that’s because it is. Firing a group of pots can take several days and half a cord of wood. But for Lisa it’s worth it because what comes out is an original, a Wood original. No two pots are alike because oxidation in the clay body is specific to each clay piece. The fire sucks the oxygen out of the clay forming unique color and pattern. During the reduction phase, as the blaze dampers down, carbon smoke billows and permeates the kiln’s chaotic inner chamber. Reduction creates a landscape of warm tones similar to those embedded in the Earth’s surface; the finest elements and minerals; each piece evokes the landscape of the viewers experience, the dark-grey of silver and iron flecks buried within the crust, the red sand stone cliffs of Sedona, or teal glacial peaks of the Rockies. One vase is a cross-section of nature.
It takes time and tenacity to be a potter. For Lisa and her family it takes sacrifice as well. Her workspace expands into the family’s living space, the kiln and wood chopping and gathering consumes her time. She says she is very fortunate since most aspiring potters start out in chicken coops and various other outbuildings, “I just took over the living room.” Her family is making sacrifices to help build her business and she says, “I have to make pots.”
The milestones continue to add up as the family sacrifices room in their house for Lisa’s workspace, and time spent with them converts to time devoted to the kiln. Then, of course, there’s constant labor in gathering those ten cords of wood. This makes for an arduous task. Although she has a hydraulic wood splitter to ease the load the quantity takes a whole season to split. Her husband lets her off the hook from gathering wood for their home and a beetle infestation in their back wooded lot, left stately spruce trees standing useless. Before she took up pottery Lisa worked for the city of Juneau cutting trails, which helps in her efforts to feed Freddy. Now she uses dead trees to bring life to her pottery.
She credits Jack Walsh and Barbara Holman of Homer for teaching her the ways of working with clay. She worked with them for a long time while using the wood shop in Homer to work on projects, and gain experience. This is the collective spirit of an artist. These days, Homer’s artists are working together to build a community known for its creative energy. Like her mother in Greenwich Village in the ‘60s, Lisa Wood finds herself exploring a fresh new scene.
Lisa Wood Pottery can be found at the following locations:
Bunnell Street Gallery
Ptarmigan Arts
Homer Clay Works
Anchorage Art Gallery
