This is a Raku styled pottery created by Roger Neufeld.
As is customary for Raku pottery, the artwork has an metallic sheen. The wide "rim" of the piece is actually folded around the sides and has a hollow center to them.
Roger has a fantastic story that goes with this piece, as it has a once in a life time characteristic that could not be replicated.
"This item has the unusual feature of a slightly incomplete but readable word “WOOD” on its side. Here’s a story of how that came about.
-
A tree, itself a product of millions of years of genetic history, grew in a forest.
-
It was selected and cut down.
-
The wood was sold for pulp.
-
The pulp was processed into paper.
-
The paper was sold to an Alberta printer.
-
The printer made it into a newspaper, with content and advertising.
-
In 2023, the newspaper was saved and taken to a raku firing event where several potters and artists took pots that had previously been fired at low temperatures, decorated them with glazes and perhaps other materials, reheated them to 1000 degrees C., then moved them while still hot into a “pit” containing combustible materials. The pit was then closed so that the heat would cause smoking but unpredictable and incomplete burning, a process that creates endless variations in the glazes, and discolorations of the surfaces.
-
The paper was included in one of the pits, perhaps with other combustibles such as sawdust, or leaves.
-
Somehow in the pit, the paper lay with one of its words (“WOOD”) against a pot. The word was printed on the side of the paper not directly touching the pot, but for subtle reasons (perhaps temperature, oxygen, chemistry of the paper or the other materials in the pit etc.) the ink created the conditions for the word to stand out from other surface markings on the pot.
-
When the temperature in the pit had fallen enough, the pot was pulled out with tongs or welder’s gloves, and the potters were startled to find a word showing up in that way, as it isn’t something any of them had seen happen before.
It is touching that the word that appeared in this way feels as though it could be a cryptic message from the tree that provided the necessary “combustible” for the raku process. The incident might encourage reflection on the way in which “contingency” results in things coming together in ways that appear meaningful (and may have real-world consequences) but are not predictable and not meaningful in the usual sense. All the preceding causal events may be fully determined, but the coming together of specific events in ways that get our attention is often startling.
Roger Neufeld 2025"
The piece is made with Raku fired clay. The piece was created in 2023.
The overall dimensions of the pottery are 3" tall with a 8 1/2" diameter.