A selection of work by ceramic artist Gail McCarthy was presented with support from the Sylvia L. Rosen Endowment to mark her long career in this region. McCarthy has distinguished herself by producing sumptuous luster vessels and wall-hung tile murals. Her patient process requires multiple kiln firings to produce iridescent, metallic finishes that radiate prismatic complexity. The exhibition brochure contains an essay by Head of Collections and Charles Cary Rumsey Curator Nancy Weekly and an artist statement in which McCarthy describes her inspiration, techniques, and aspiration for this luminous art:
I am in pursuit of light. I seek lusters within the continual state of transformation. I hunt after miracles with smoke and alchemy. I gamble on finding that precipitate moment when glaze becomes gold, mysteriously transmuted by fire and flames.
The rituals of the in-glaze luster technique fulfill my passion for sorcery, as they did for Persians in ancient times when lustered vessels were revered like gold itself and lustered tiles were installed in the holiest sections of mosques and caliphs’ tombs. My work is a contemporary adaptation of those venerable Middle Eastern techniques.
When most potters are finished, I am just at the start, because I submit my work to the kiln again and again, each time adding thin layers of glaze. In the course of each firing, I introduce solid combustibles into the kiln atmosphere, which produce a dense smoke that encourages the reduction cycle.
I use precious metals for colorants—silver nitrate, gold chloride, platinum chloride, as well as copper, cobalt, vanadium, bismuth, and manganese. These glazes “bloom” into lusters within limited temperature range, and so between perilous margins my vessels and tile-paintings are coaxed into living light.
It is my hope that these works speak to both the minute and the cosmic powers of visual life.
Gail McCarthy