3 - Lori Bernstein
Froggy Bottoms Pottery
1300 Pacific Street
Port Townsend, WA 98368
Telephone: 360.385.2227
loribernstein@hotmail.com
Ceramics
Demonstration:
In the world of ceramics, making a pot on the potter's wheel is called "throwing" a pot. I throw pots with a porcellaneous stoneware clay, allow them to dry until they are "leather-hard," and then decorate them using a technique called "sgraffito" (from the Italian "sgraffire," meaning "to scratch"). Visitors will have the opportunity to watch me demonstrate both throwing and sgraffito and to see finished pots on display. For the adventurous, there will be an opportunity to participate in creating a collaborative work of ceramic art.
Directions to studio:
Go north on San Juan Avenue. Just past the intersection at F Street, turn right onto Tremont Street. Take the first left onto Pacific Street. The house & studio will be on your right on the corner. You may enter the studio through the French doors.
Artist statement:
Every evening in the springtime, the pond near my home comes to life with the song of frogs. My studio, Froggy Bottoms Pottery, is named after this little pond. It is both my workshop and a "classroom" where I balance my time between teaching pottery and creating hand made ceramic art.
Some of my work is slab built, but I make most of my work on the potter's wheel. After forming the pieces, I decorate them by brushing on multiple layers of colored clay. Once the layers have dried, I carve through them to reveal the contrasting clay body beneath. The resulting surfaces, black and white and highly textured, remind me of woodcut prints.
I made my first pots on a wooden kickwheel while living in the Costa Rican cloud forest. Later, I studied pottery at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Maine and at Pottery Northwest in Seattle. I received my BA in Art from UC Berkeley.
My work is available locally at the Port Townsend Gallery and in Seattle at the Northwest Craft Center.
I teach, I make pots, and the frogs sing me to sleep.