Barbara Zaveruha
My aim is to make useful pots, in lovely colors, referencing that prairie landscape. I take materials that come from the earth—clay and ground-up rocks—and create the conditions in which they can express their potential for beauty. I make high-fired stoneware for its strength and durability, and glaze with a palette of colors that do not depend on toxic compounds. Grasses and plants are laid on a clay slab or bowl at early leather-hard, and pressed in with a rolling pin or ladle. Leaf prints are made by a leaf-resist process: slip is brushed on at late leather-hard, the soft leaf is laid on the slip, and the excess slip around the leaf is removed.
