I First Learned To Use A Potter’s Wheel In 1967
For the last 25 years I have been exploring the hand-thrown ring form, making and altering uniquely shaped, various-cross-section hollow rings on the potter's wheel, then completing the Upright Ring Teapot form by adding a base, neck, lid, finial, spout and handle.
In a related series of teapots I have been cutting the leather-hard hollow rings apart and reassembling the separate arc sections into a pleasing composition with handbuilding methods, then mounting the Assembly on a base and adding handthrown, handbuilt, and pulled elements to form a Reassembled Ring Teapot.
In 1978, my wife and business partner Susan Nykiel and I established Oak Bluffs Cottage Pottery at our home/studio in Pownal, Vermont. I continue to make ceramic art, and I teach clay-working skills in our studio to interested students.
About the Reassembled Ring Teapots
I have thought about ceramic teapots for a long time! I have come to understand that my Reassembled Ring Teapots are both teapots and sculptures that refer to teapots, in the same way that a sculpture of Martin Luther King refers to that famous and revered person, but is not actually Dr. King. A conventional round teapot, one of whose attributes is that it is very efficient at brewing tea, is also a sculpture in the shape of a teapot.
Every human-made object is a sculpture with attributes which fit it to or diverge away from the role that object is conventionally perceived to play in our lives.
We can say that a familiar utensil, such as a teapot, is actually that utensil, but it is also one example (manifest as a sculpture) of an idea we more or less share about what that utensil is or should be.
We judge all objects initially by how their attributes reinforce or stray from our beliefs of what that utensil-object "should be," and ultimately by how the object inspires, educates and challenges us.
In my opinion, if it has a handle, an interior chamber for tea, a lid that covers the opening at the top of the chamber, and a spout, it is a teapot, even if it may not be very efficient at brewing or serving tea. More specifically, it is a sculpture in the shape of a teapot.
Although they may not be the "most functional" utensils for brewing tea, I can only hope that my Upright Ring and Reassembled Ring Teapots nevertheless have significant attributes that make them worthy of contemplation and inspiration!