Frosted Ceramics

Contemporary American ceramic artist Richard Hirsch's Altar bowl with blown glass ladle #5 was assembled in 2007. It's wheel thrown and hand built clay with low fire slips and glazes, black glaze, enamel polychrome paint, raku green patina and hot blown glass. In the book "With Fire: Richard Hirsch, A Life Between Chance and Design" Scott Meyer said; "As Hirsch's work progressed over the years, it would be a mistake to portray these advances as chronological. In fact, items found provocative would be added to the roster of possibility. The vessel might change in character with the deep interior space of a mortar becoming the shallow concavity of a Japanese, stone Tsubi basin or natural geode form. The corresponding implement might change from bulbous pestle to delicate ladle, alluding to the ceremonial cleansing for participants in the Tea Ceremony. In this sense, the proximity of these objects to their implied ceremonial use was similar to that which traditional Raku bowls...

Contemporary American ceramic artist Richard Hirsch's Altar Bowl with Blown Glass Ladle Sculpture #3 was assembled in 2020. It's wheel thrown and hand built clay, gold enamel paint, black and white glazes with hot blown glass. In the book "With Fire: Richard Hirsch, A Life Between Chance and Design" Scott Meyer said; "As Hirsch's work progressed over the years, it would be a mistake to portray these advances as chronological. In fact, items found provocative would be added to the roster of possibility. The vessel might change in character with the deep interior space of a mortar becoming the shallow concavity of a Japanese, stone Tsubi basin or natural geode form. The corresponding implement might change from bulbous pestle to delicate ladle, alluding to the ceremonial cleansing for participants in the Tea Ceremony. In this sense, the proximity of these objects to their implied ceremonial use was similar to that which traditional Raku bowls...