Time itself seems to be the subject of this urn. From the ancient spiral of the ammonite fossil perched at its crown to the rhythmic waves encircling its body, this vessel speaks quietly and insistently about the patterns that repeat across nature, across centuries, across every life lived.
Kathy Cady has thrown a form of exceptional rotundity, wide and low with a broad shoulder that gives the piece a grounded, unhurried presence. The gloss glaze runs deep and warm, a dark toffee and mahogany brown that shifts toward reddish copper where light rakes across the curved surface. It is a serious, rich color, the color of aged wood and autumn earth, and it provides the perfect foil for the decoration that animates the vessel.
Encircling the body in horizontal bands are hand-applied slip-trailed lines in cream and gold, each one zigzagging in a loose, energetic wave pattern that echoes the natural geometry of ocean swells, sound frequencies, or the growth rings of a nautilus shell. The lines are fluid and alive, applied with a confident hand, and they catch the light differently from the surrounding glaze, adding a subtle dimensional texture to each band. The lid carries the same decorative language, its rim edged in gold.
And at the summit, the ammonite fossil handle commands attention. Creamy white patterned with intricate brown markings and curling into its ancient logarithmic spiral, it is both scientific specimen and natural sculpture, a 400-million-year-old form placed atop a vessel made by human hands today. The conversation between them is the whole point.