In February 2010 I was contacted by Kory Rogers, exhibitions curator at the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont. He invited me to participate in a May 16 to October 24, 2010 feature exhibit of ceramic art titled "All Fired Up—Six Ceramic Artists From Vermont," held in the beautiful big Shaker Round Barn building at the entrance of the Shelburne Museum. The installation of my display in this exhibition included eighteen Reassembled and Upright Ring Teapots, as well as my Rough Rusty Pillow Teapot and my Lace-Pattern Oval Slab-Built Teapot. During this same period I was invited to participate in the Bennington Museum's 50-year survey exhibition of craft-media artwork in Vermont, titled "State Of Craft," from May 22 to October 30, 2010. The curators of “State Of Craft” chose to exhibit my Midnight Blue Intersecting Arcs Reassembled Ring Teapot, which you can find in the Private Collections section of this web site. More information about these exhibitions can be found in the Exhibitions section of this web site.

This welcome attention for my ceramic art inspired me to begin work on Red Clipper Reassembled Ring Teapot, which you can find in the Private Collections section, and I completed it in time to include it in the Shelburne Museum exhibition. During a walk around the extensive grounds of the Museum, which is located just south of Burlington, Vermont, I looked west and saw the dark choppy waters of Lake Champlain. This Lake is large and deep, and has sometimes been called "The Sixth Great Lake." There have been several reports over the years, none proven by hard evidence, of sightings in the Lake of a Loch Ness-type sea monster, nicknamed "Champ" in the popular press. During that walk around the Museum grounds I began thinking about how I might compose a Reassembled Ring Teapot inspired by Lake Champlain. It would have to be presented in a horizontal format, similar to Orange-Pointed-Star Cross-Section Reassembled Ring Teapot, which you can find in the Private Collections section of this web site, and the new Lake-Champlain-inspired Teapot would display wave-crest points and edges as well as wave-trough curves. Back home in our Oak Bluffs Cottage Pottery studio after our visit to the Shelburne Museum, I threw a 5-pointed-star cross-section ring on the potter's wheel, and using my reliable x-acto knife tool. I cut the ring into five curvy-pointy-ended arc sections of varying lengths. Then I threw a wide bowl, cut a chord (horizontal strip section) out of its center, and joined the two remaining crescent-shaped half-sections together for the inverted oval base. I joined the ring arc-sections in my planned horizontal format, with all of the sections curving upward except for the central section which curves downward, and mounted it on the oval base with two separate joins and a look-through showing between. I added the pulled handle on the left of the composition, and slab-built an ornate "Champ-Monster" teapot spout, which I mounted on the right-most arc section. I cut the trap-door teapot lid into the top of the center downward-curving section, and built an abstract lid finial out of three layers of curved-edge slabs, trying to echo the curves and dips of the handle, teapot body, and ornate spout. It wasn't until later that I saw that the finial slab composition looks like an abstract dancing figure with a crescent moon on its chest, its arms extended in upward and downward curves, and its right foot raised and pointed toward the spout. What a nice surprise!

I glazed the completed Teapot with a first layer of our opaque glossy white glaze, then added successive sometimes-overlapping poured layers of our pale blue and teal blue glazes. The glazing process was completed by randomly brushing our hemlock green glaze onto parts of the Teapot surface. The teapot came through the glaze firing with a dark watery feeling, with the opaque white glaze bubbling in places through the dark blue-teal-green surface. It is very evocative of the dark choppy waters of Lake Champlain, and I am very pleased with the completed sculptural presence of my “Dancing On The Choppy Waters Of Lake Champlain Reassembled Ring Teapot.”

8” Tall x 21” Wide x 9” Deep
Cone 5 oxidation Firing
This Teapot was purchased for a private collection in Asheville, North Carolina.