Thursday, April 10, 2008

you've got mail.

i received a package in the mail today. it was from akar, a linda christianson "yunomi" from their annual yunomi show. linda has been a favorite potter of mine for some years now, the funny part is that i have never seen any of her work in person. i grew up in minnesota and had heard of her, but had never seen any of her pieces anywhere. after seeing an oval teapot in jack troys book on woodfiring, i fell in love with her work. living here in texas her pieces are pretty much impossible to come upon, so i jumped at the chance when i saw some work available at the yunomi show.

i had taken some stylistic elements from her work when i was in college, mostly the way she treats the the bottom of an unturned pot(i still use this today) and i have always loved that little wavering line oround the middle on some of her bowls. the great thing is that the conclusions that i had drawn about how she worked her pots were completely wrong. after handling this particular bowl, it became obvioius to me that some of the stylistice choices are actually just results of the process, not necessarily conscious choices at all! its amazing that one little bowl can completely flip what you thought you knew on its head, but in a good way.

and, this bowl is way bigger than a typical yunomi. which means i can eat cereal out of it, even better.

the rambling ceases, go about your business.





1 comment:

Brandon Hanna said...

Hey Brandon,

Nice yunomi there. I just talked to Linda last week, I've never met her before either but I'm planning to during their St. Croix Potters tour there in about a month. I'm from Minnesota too, in fact my studio is in Saint Paul in the bustle of things. Where did you grow up in Minnesota?

Keep in touch,
Brandon (yep, my name too!)