Studio
Inside the studio.
The studio is in the Monticello neighborhood of San Antonio, open by appointment. The exact address is shared when a visit is confirmed. The practice is hand-built ceramics: stoneware and porcelain forms built by hand, finished with glazes pulled from a long-standing interest in vintage formulations. Most pieces are fired to cone six, oxidation. The working principle is Shouganai. Go with what the material and the fire decide. Move forward.
How a piece is made.
A longer note from the studio is coming. A paragraph from Jerry, in his own voice, on the particular making sequence of the studio. Coiling, slab, pinching, the wedging table, a typical week. The note below describes the practice in the journalist register; Jerry’s own version sits here when he writes it.
The work is hand-built: walls raised from coils or slabs, joined and burnished by hand, the mark of the build kept legible under the glaze rather than smoothed away. The studio does not pretend the wheel makes these pieces. The hand does.
Vintage glazes.
A longer note from the studio is coming. A paragraph from Jerry on why vintage glazes, which families he is drawn to (the celadons, the tenmokus, the shinos, the ashes and salts, the coppers and manganeses), and how he approaches their unpredictability. The general description below stands in the meantime.
A vintage glaze is a glaze drawn from a recipe older than the studio. Some come from twentieth-century practice; some from much earlier. They are slower, more particular, and less predictable than commercial glazes, which is the point: the glaze brings its own history and its own behavior to the firing, and the work accepts both.
The fire.
A longer note from the studio is coming. A paragraph from Jerry on the kiln itself, the firing schedule, and what the artist accepts that the fire decides. This is where Shouganai lives most plainly. The general description below stands in the meantime.
Every piece passes the fire twice. Once for the body, once for the glaze. By the time the kiln is unloaded, the artist has already done what an artist can do. What comes out is a conversation between preparation and the temperature curve. Shouganai. It cannot be helped. The work is what the work decided to be.
Studio video
A short looping studio video, hands building a vessel, a glaze pour, or a kiln opening, will sit here. Captured silently, captioned at the bottom.
Studio notes.
A short reference for collectors and curators. The specifics below are confirmed with the studio piece by piece; held-open lines are filled as Jerry supplies them.
- MethodHand-built. Walls raised from coils and slabs, joined and burnished by hand. Not thrown.
- BodyStoneware and porcelain. Specific clay bodies, Owner to confirm.
- FiringMost work is fired to cone six, oxidation. Full range, Owner to confirm.
- GlazesVintage glazes, drawn from recipes older than the studio. Specific glaze families, Owner to confirm.
- UseFood, water, and outdoor safety vary by glaze and are confirmed for each piece on inquiry.
The Monticello studio.
Monticello is a neighborhood with quiet streets and long porches, on the near-northwest side of San Antonio. The studio sits there. Pieces leave the studio either through Mockingbird Handprints, a gallery in Olmos Park, or through inquiries to the studio itself.
