My parents immigrated to the United States from Northern Ireland when I was three years old.  From the age of eight, my sister and I traveled to Northern Ireland to spend summers with our grandmother.  During our stays, we would make a trip to the china shop to look at the tableware and figurines.  From that moment, I have associated fine china and porcelain with treasured heirlooms, past from one generation to the next.

My inspiration comes from creating unique porcelain vessels with a sense of delicacy typically associated with mass produced china.  I take p...

My parents immigrated to the United States from Northern Ireland when I was three years old.  From the age of eight, my sister and I traveled to Northern Ireland to spend summers with our grandmother.  During our stays, we would make a trip to the china shop to look at the tableware and figurines.  From that moment, I have associated fine china and porcelain with treasured heirlooms, past from one generation to the next.

My inspiration comes from creating unique porcelain vessels with a sense of delicacy typically associated with mass produced china.  I take pleasure in working with porcelain, with its silky, smooth texture gliding through my fingers on the potter’s wheel.  After high firing, the durable, white, translucent body has brilliance unique to porcelain.  Typically small in size, my porcelain vessels have an intimacy associated with heirlooms.   I have begun to incorporate open stock decals and metallic lusters, materials overlooked by modern studio potters as feminine hobby materials.  I am interested in the conflict created by kitsch images placed on hand made objects.  I also want to challenge the aesthetics and values being reproduced when using such materials.  

I am currently exploring the connection between my material and myself by adding feldspar inclusions to porcelain.   I find the resulting crusty surface a beautiful contrast to my voluptuous glazed vessels.  The final effects are pearl-like eruptions covering the surface of the vessels.  The texture can further be enhanced by first coating the greenware pieces with black underglaze.  With a damp sponge, the underglaze is removed from the rough surface to reveal the white clay below.   After firing in a gas kiln to cone 10, the glossy feldspar inclusions are painted with mother of pearl overglaze and fired to cone 017.  The mother of pearl adds brilliance to the feldspar inclusions.  Multiple refirings to cone 017 are needed for each additional luster overglaze, china paint or open stock decals on a given piece.   Some pieces require up to five refirings in order to achieve the final effect.

Gillian J. Parke