Emily Lees
Raku and Stoneware Pottery
emilylees@bellsouth.net
My way to clay has been long and winding, with many stops along the way. When I was nineteen, I visited Teague Pottery in Seagrove, NC, where a potter who was demonstrating the potter’s wheel asked me if I would like to try my hand at it. I replied yes and knew immediately that I was hooked. College, graduate school, and marriage all intervened, however, and it was seven years before I took my first clay class. Another hiatus followed while I worked and raised a family. Some forty years after I began, I am once again a potter.
Now my pottery is handbuilt from slabs. My work features bottles and flat forms which offer an interplay between two and three dimensions. I do both Raku and cone 6 oxidation firings. My husband and I have a deep appreciation for ukiyo-e woodblock prints, and this nineteenth century Japanese aesthetic informs my craft. I strive, too, to capture the essence of mingei, or traditional Japanese folk art pottery. I interpret Asian forms in red and yellow Raku glazes, and my stoneware reflects the same influences in a more muted palette. Alternately, the rectangles and geometric lines which sometimes appear in my work are evocative of Piet Mondrian’s paintings.
Working with clay is a meditation and a joy. I hope that people who view my work will likewise derive pleasure from my art.
“To work with clay is to be in touch with the taproot of life.” – Shoji Hamada
© Cary Gallery of Artists. Please do not use or reproduce without written permission.
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