Stand before this urn long enough and you begin to see weather in it. Kathy Cady has soda-fired this wheel-thrown porcelain vessel to extraordinary effect, coaxing from the kiln atmosphere a surface that recalls fog lifting off still water, or the particular grey-green light that fills the sky just before snow. It is a color without a simple name, somewhere between celadon and pewter, between sage and sea glass, and it is utterly captivating.
Soda firing, that most atmospheric of kiln techniques, has left its characteristic signature across the rounded body in drifting clouds of white where the sodium vapor settled and fluxed the glaze, creating soft, irregular blooms that float against the cooler ground like cumulus against a winter sky. Horizontal bands of warm sienna and sandy brown thread through the composition at the vessel’s equator and lower body, evidence of the flame’s path through the kiln, unplanned and unrepeatable. The lid carries a concentrated pool of teal and turquoise at its center, a sudden flash of color that surprises and delights against the vessel’s more restrained palette.
The form is generous and grounded, a wide sphere that settles low with quiet permanence. Its surface texture is complex without being busy, each view offering something slightly different, a new cloud formation, a new interplay of warm and cool. A small faceted aquamarine or clear quartz crystal sits in a thrown collar at the lid’s crown, its geometric cut faces scattering light in sharp contrast to the organic softness of everything below.
Contemplative, elemental, and deeply alive.