Stacy Stanhope

I make functional and decorative works in clay that combine illustration with hand thrown forms. Each piece is first thrown on a potter’s wheel then decorated with wax. A black slip is painted on the surface, causing the paint to stick to the raw clay but not the wax, and revealing the drawn image. The pottery is then high fired in a salt kiln to approximately 2300 degrees. As the wax burns off in the kiln, salt is introduced into the kiln through ‘spy holes’, reacting with the silica in the clay and causing the distinctive “salt-fired” sheen to appear on the surface of the pot.