Page 28 - the NOISE March 2015

OUT OF THE EARTH & INTO THE FIRE:
a potter’s tale
stoRY BY saRah gianelli
Aspark of excitement, fueled by the wåhoosh of blue propane, leaps around the backyard of Hanna Flagg as she and three other ceramicists ready themselves around an
inverted trash can, warning spectators to stand back. when the kiln reaches 1650 degrees, Larry Meagher (a veteran ceramicist renowned for his work at Arcosanti and with the late, great Don Reitz) raises the can on a pulley system while Linda Gallagher reaches in with long tongs, pulls out a large sculptural fish and deposits it in another trashcan, this one lined with newspapers and sawdust that explode into flames before she snuffs it out with a lid, and the flourish of a finale.
now they wait while the piece is enveloped in smoke, the carbon interacting with the chemical compounds in the glaze to create the flashing iridescence indicative of western Raku.
Today the group has gathered to fire Raku, but it is the fruits of Ms. Flagg’s latest obsession that will be the focus of her March show at Made in Jerome Pottery.
so obscure as to not yet have a wikipedia page, Obvara pottery, also known as Baltic Raku is a four to six century-old technique that originated in the eastern european regions of Lithuania,LatviaandBelarus. Obvara,whichmeans“scalding,” is a process in which a red hot pot is plunged into a water- based “brew” of fermented flour, yeast and sugar, which burns onto the surface of the pot in an earth-toned spottiness.
“In the old days, before the advent of glazes, this process was used to seal the pots so they could be used for cooking, and to eat from,” explains Ms. Flagg. (Research also suggests that the eye-shaped bubbles that commonly form on the vessel’s surface were thought to ward off envious eyes, thus protecting the food.)
“Glazes can be expensive and hard to come by, so the peasants and the farmers in the Baltic where this comes from, used what they had, which was a lot of wheat and rye,” says Ms. Flagg. “It sounds like bread dough and it smells like bread dough. You let it ferment for three days, and I think that’s what makes the bubbles,” she says, rotating a sandy-textured vase of speckled blacks, browns, ochre and cream that gives the piece the look of stone or bone. Ms. Flagg learned not to leave the fermenting brew outside, when she woke one morning baffled to find it all gone — until she noticed the dense trample of Javelina hooves. “They must’ve had a feast!” she laughs.
Ms. Flagg learned about the Obvara technique a few months ago through an Australian potter friend who had taken a workshop in the little known method, and Ms. Flagg’s curiosity was piqued. The teacher of the workshop, Jane Jermyn — considered to be the leader of the Obvara resurgence in the west — contacted Ms. Flagg directly, providing her with the recipe for the mixture and how to use it.
“I call myself an experimental potter, and Obvara really appeals to my sense of experimentation,” says Ms. Flagg.
“I’m always excited about learning something new and just playing with it. Clay is cheap, so what?”
Ms. Flagg’s experimentation with Obvara firing has coalesced into a show called Meerkats and Shells, featuring an abstracted “mob” of those south African desert mammals who have a cute propensity to pose upright on their hind legs. what is the connection between a desert mongoose and sea shells? “‘Meerkat’ means ‘sea cat,’” explains Ms. Flagg. “It’s a Dutch word — so to me, it’s ocean cats and shells. Of course they go
together! But to an American that might not be as obvious.” Ms. Flagg came to Jerome in 1978. Born in the German part of switzerland, Ms. Flagg moved to england in her early 20s to work as an au pair and learn english. she took a pottery class for
fun and it fell right in line with her love of earthy, tactile interests. “I like squishing things around; I like dirt and I like gardening.
I used to make the sunday bread at home,” she says.
Ms. Flagg glosses over the decades of traveling that followed her time in england — through Canada and back to switzerland where she taught in the American high school and stashed away enough money to sustain herself while volunteering on archaeological digs in Israel, and living in Mexico. It was archaeology that drew Ms. Flagg to Mexico, but when she learned she was expected to be the cook and sleep in the head archaeologist’s tent, she happily took up weaving with the local women and children.
while living in san Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas, she met jeweler Richard Flagg (or star, as he is known, for the symbol he used to sign his pieces), and he invited her to visit the little town of Jerome where he had bought an old mining shack.
It took Ms. Flagg three days by train to get from Oaxaca to nogales, where Mr. Flagg awaited her arrival. True to cliché, his Vw van broke down around sunset Point delaying their arrival in the northern part of the state, and perpetuating Ms. Flagg’s growing concerns about her decision to leave Mexico.
“But when we got here, I was totally in love with the place,” she says. “even doing the dishes outside with a cold water faucet. we didn’t have a sink or water. we had an outhouse. It was primitive but immediately I loved it. I loved being here on this mountainside ... in a way it reminded me of switzerland. And here I am, however many years later.”
Toward the end of the 15 years she and her now ex-husband owned the Jerome Gallery before selling it in 2004, Ms. Flagg began taking ceramic classes in earnest, and has shown her ever-evolving work at Made in Jerome Pottery since 2006.
Ms. Flagg’s love of travel, archaeology and pottery endures. In 2008, she went to nicaragua with Potters for Peace, an organization formed after Hurricane Mitch destroyed much of the country and left its inhabitants without clean drinking water or means to filter it.
“someone had the idea to produce ceramic water filters with potters down there and sell them cheap to the local population,” says Ms. Flagg. “It was very time consuming, hard work — we would get the clay from the edge of the cornfield and everyone would carry a few pounds back up the hill. They couldn’t understand that we’d pay money for clay when you can just dig it. For them, time doesn’t have monetary value. so if they can sell you something for five dollars, they feel good about it. It doesn’t cost them anything
— it’s just some wood and dirt. But it’s become very important for the women; they’re earning some money which makes them more independent. so they wanted us to work with these women, share ideas, tell them what sells in the Us, what Americans would like and buy.”
while most nicaraguan pottery is molded by hand, a few of the cooperatives are starting to get manual kick wheels and Ms. Flagg returned a second time to teach a group of women how to use them. “The wheel makes things so much faster, so if they can get the wheel going they can really start to make some money.”
Ms. Flagg also keeps her toes — or fingers — in archaeological research, analyzing pottery with the Verde Valley Archaeology Center & Museum in Camp Verde.
“I think it’s all tied in,” she says. “The gardening, the pottery, the archaeology... it’s all kind of the same, working with what’s here, the textural aspect ... the earthiness. I don’t mind to get muddy; I get right into it, and feel it. with the clay you have this lump and then you put it on the wheel, spin it and then all of a sudden you get this shape. You pull it out a little bit and it’s suddenly totally different. How many shapes of bowls can you make? Lots.”
At this point, Ms. Gallagher comes in the house, grumbling with disappointment about the way her raku fish turned out. Outside everyone gathers around the shimmery fish and reassures her. “wow, that’s cool — look how the green streak gives the effect of it swimming through water,” and “see how the crackle there looks like scales?”
“well that’s pottery for you,”says Ms. Flagg. “You never know how it’s going to turn out. But that’s the best part.”
An assorted array of Ms. Flagg’s pottery, including high-fired functional wares; stark white and crackled black “naked raku,” as well as her Obvara pieces can be found at Made in Jerome Pottery. Her show, Meerkats and Shells, runs through March 31 with an opening reception during First saturday Artwalk from 6-8PM, saturday, March 7 at Made in Jerome Pottery,
103 Main street in Jerome. madeinjeromepottery.com
| sarah gianelli drives the road less traveled, sometimes more than once a month. sarahgianelli@thenoise.us
28 • MARCH 2015 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us