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By the time you read this, Cachi Jefferson's
exhibition at Circle Craft will be gone.
Judging from the number of red dots, chere
will be many forcunate people sitting down
for some lovely meals. With the exception
of a few vases, all the pieces displayed were
designed to showease food and drink.

Ower che years, I've seem Cachi do small secs

of creamers and sugar pots on trays, as well
as soy sauce holders on clay servers. [t was
wonderful to see how well she rose co the
challenge of her theme. She explored
mytiad possibilities and took some risks,
Very successfully, [ muse add,

The show was mounted against cwo walls,
one painted a deep, almost bloody , terra
cotta and the other in robin's egg celadon.
The rich, golden-orange of the salt glaze
stood our to advantage against the walls.
Some sets were displayed on cables and
shelves crafted by Lloyd Armtzen, who
works in rustic alder, yellow cedar, scotch
pine, black walnut and laurel. The warm
finish of the wood enhanced the surface of
the pots, rather than blending into ther .
It was all coo easy to imagine these dinner
secs living in my own home!

| counted at least eight different decorative
motifs, some of which wittily played off the

shape of the serving vessels, A honey comb

pattern saw plates in the same shape as an
individual bee cell. A beautiful, fluidly
brushed design of whear stalks had twenty-

four pieces that assembled into the shape of

stem of wheat, A large fern leaf had been
pressed into a slab chat was then cut into

five plates, each combining to make a
greater whole.

I

Of all che “concrete” pottery , [ personally
found a twelve piece water lily dining sec
for four to be the most successful. The
assemblage of components into a lily
blossom was stunning. Individual plates
and sauce bowls were painted with lily
pads and blossoms. Four lovely tea or
sake cups, along with an assortment of
chopstick holders, completed the set. The
outlines of a mirage-like sushi dinner
seemed to shimmer in the forms,

The work in this show is a combination of
slab building and throwing. The serving
plates and crays are all slabs, fairly thin
bur, due to firing temperature, sturdy
enough to survive use. The slabs are
lively, with hines of process left in them.
The thrown forms are usually altered, cur
and then paddled into squared off or
triangular forms. This is a very effective
way to maintain a visual continuicy
between che chrown cea bowls and slab
plaves. God is in the details, somebody
once said, and it waa the small couches,
like che cornered, cut-away foot on a
thrown triangular teapot, that make these
pors so outstanding.

The work was fired in the kiln that Cachi
finished building just over a year ago
{check out the summer 96 issue of
Contact magazine for the story of thar
epic}. [tis asalt, gas-fired, downdraft car
kiln. For painting her designs, she uses a
ball clay terra sigilatta with a brown stain
in it. Flar surfaces are given a light spray
ef Andrew's cone 10 luster glaze. This
adds co the surface depth and also helps
the pots in the center of the kiln, which
don't get as much sale interaction as the
pors on the edges. The boctom of the kiln
fires a bit cooler, so pots placed there tend
ro have a more matte qualicy.

[ swore I wouldn't make this a puff piece.
Really, the only reason thar there are any

criticiams is because of the overall
excellence of the show. [ found that the
formality of some shapes contrasted a littl
too strongly with the ease of che surface
treatment. The geomecric wheat stalk
composition was probably the most
notable example of this. The fern place
setting could have used some of the
melding of image and form that the water
lily and honeycomb sets had. A poppy
leaf motif on a set of bowls seemed a little
flat and stiff. Perhaps if the painting had
been done with a very thin slip of oxide,
the revealed brush-strokes would have
livened it up a bie?

The design that Carhi modelled after a
paper money plant is, | think, the
strongest. [t was used on many objects in
the show, looking particularly exceptional
ena tall, slender, squared-off rower of a
tea pot. This decoration reminded me of
art nouveau motifs, which originated,
fittingly enough, in Western
interpretations of Japanese wood-block
prirvts.

[ keep remembering gems like the paper
money fan set, triangular plares with a

delicate shimmer of glaze and lacy brush

work that declared elegance. There were
round boxes: thrown and lidded squat
cylinders, with slab built condiment
holders nestled inside. The outside af
each box was plain, but the raised
remnant of the throwing spiral broke with
a pale emphasis on the deep, rich orange
salt glaze. There was a soya pot,
incredibly jaunty with a lid shaped like a
Chinese peasant's hat and a naughty
spout. This pot was so animated that |
wouldn't be surprised to see it taking a
stroll,

As you can tell, [ loved chis show. I kept
imagining all che good dinners that will be
made better by these place settings and
serving dishes. This work perfectly
demonstraces the function as art.

Karen Opas-

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