This urn holds the color of shallow tropical water over white sand, of Caribbean bays caught in afternoon light, of the particular luminous turquoise that exists at the exact meeting point of sky and sea. Kathy Cady has achieved something genuinely rare here: a soda-fired porcelain surface so alive with color and texture that the vessel seems to generate its own quiet radiance.
The glaze is a variegated turquoise and aquamarine, its ground tone a clear, confident robin’s egg blue that shifts warmer and cooler across the rounded body. Scattered throughout in fine, all-over stippling are tiny white and pale grey specks where the soda vapor interacted with the copper-bearing glaze during firing, breaking up the color field into something that breathes and shimmers rather than sitting flat. The effect is reminiscent of seafoam, or of fine mineral aggregate suspended in clear water, endlessly varied and endlessly satisfying to study.
The form is Cady at her most resolved: a compact, wide-shouldered sphere that sits close and full, with a low center of gravity that communicates permanence and protection. The disc lid fits cleanly, its rim edged in a fine line of unglazed porcelain that glows cream white against the surrounding turquoise, a precise detail that elevates the whole. A polished clear quartz crystal rises from a small domed collar at the center of the lid, its faceted planes and interior clarity offering a crystalline counterpoint to the warm, organic texture of the fired clay beneath. Water and ice. Earth and sky.
Radiant, serene, and achingly beautiful.