“Octo-Woman” Monumental Lidded Stoneware Jar by Mattie Leeds

Description

This large piece is an elaborately patterned pot almost 3.5 feet tall. It is made with multiple layers of innovative … more This large piece is an elaborately patterned pot almost 3.5 feet tall. It is made with multiple layers of innovative techniques beginning with skillful throwing on a potter's wheel with high-fire stoneware, then low-fire bright-colored underglazes and wax resist are applied. It is fired a second time with a high-fire celadon glaze. The lid and handles are embellished with embossed patterns. There are other details such as the word “love” as a subtle almost hidden message. It is signed on the bottom by the artist.

The complex coloring is different shades of royal and indigo blues, reds, oranges, yellows, golds, browns, tans, and off-whites.

Mattie’s General Bio:
Working in his magnificent and expansive garden studio in the Santa Cruz CA redwood Mountains Mattie Leeds has a strong innovative and complex style that incorporates serious spiritualism with a witty sense of humor. His work is in museums and private collections internationally and is extensively exhibited.

With a multidisciplinary approach, he is constantly experimenting with the mix of abstract modernism and his formal studies in ancient Asian artistic traditions defining his powerful and colorful individual style.

Coordinating with the mountain microclimate Mattie generally throws pots in the winter and paints in the summer. Each work consists of multiple layers of application. Beginning at the potter's wheel this master potter builds monumental vessels of stoneware up to 8’ high as well as fine diminutive utilitarian porcelain pieces. 

Employing his varied innovative techniques some phases could be embossing a texture achieved with custom patterned rollers or applying raised cartouches and novelties, totem lids, and undulating handles. Sometimes there are distorted manipulations of dynamic pops and punctures in the walls of the pot at the early wet stage. The larger pieces can take days to dry thoroughly and then they might be high-fired in his giant walk-in kiln or in his huge salt-fire kiln. This may be followed by lower temperature firings to achieve the intense color and texture in the layers of underglazes depicting provocative and animated imagery of man and beast as well as abundant patterning using his fluid brush painting style and deconstructed modernism to express his limitless creative imagination. less