3 Moons Rising Over Black Mesa

This piece, which was shown in this year’s AACC faculty show, is a heat treated steel wall piece that we worked on in the ceramics studio for 3 years.  They are 3 kiln stands for our electric kilns. When Cassie Pickering, our art technician, took them apart to replace them with new stands about a month ago, she was really concerned by the rust.  I couldn’t have been more thrilled.

I’ve been fascinated by the range of colors that come from iron oxide, particularly the yellows, reds and oranges that are shown in this piece.  The natural flow of the lines came from the way that the heat and moisture consistently moved when drawn from the kiln.  The pattern has both a sense of fluidity and structure similar to a flame, or the flow of a river. Everyone seems to see different things, but everyone sees something.

Dr. Dawn Lindsay, the new college president at AACC, said that she loved the piece, and wanted it for her office. What a pleasure to have that recognition!