Raku pottery by Alan Kirby is on view during November in the Beverly J. Corcoran Gallery in the lobby of Pittsburg Memorial Auditorium.
His display of brightly colored pottery with metallic glazing is in conjunction with an exhibit of colored pencil drawings by Carolynn Burns.
“I think they make a good combination,” she said.
Kirby, who graduated from Pittsburg State University in 2001 with a biology degree, said he started in pottery in 1999. “It was a good escape from the chemistry and biology classes I was taking,” he said.
He operates a pottery business he calls HippyClay out of a studio at his Pittsburg home. He and his wife, Amanda, make a lot of functional earthenware, including lamps, vases, dinnerware, teapots and cups. The raku pieces, however, are strictly decorative because many of the glazes used contain lead, cadmium or other toxic substances.
Kirby said that most sales are online, and he’s sold his work as far away as India.
His wife has been making popular raku beads which have been sold a little closer to home, through Honey Frog Beads in Joplin, Mo.
“I do all the wheel work,” Kirby said. “It’s amazing the immediate gratification you get from the potter’s wheel. You can sit down with an idea and have it within minutes. Of course, the glazing and the firing are another matter.”
In his raku process, he fires his outdoor kiln up to around 2,000 degrees. After firing, pieces are taken from the kiln, glaze is applied to them and then they are placed in a container filled with some combustible material that smolders and consumes all the oxygen in the container.
“Sometimes I use things like pine needles or shredded newspapers,” Kirby said. “It’s the lack of oxygen in the container that brings the metallic fluxes up to the surface. You never know what you’re going to get, and that’s what keeps me coming back.”
The exhibit is open free to the entire community during Pittsburg Memorial Auditorium business hours.
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Raku pottery by Alan Kirby is on view during November in the Beverly J. Corcoran Gallery in the lobby of Pittsburg Memorial Auditorium.
His display of brightly colored pottery with metallic glazing is in conjunction with an exhibit of colored pencil drawings by Carolynn Burns.
“I think they make a good combination,” she said.
Kirby, who graduated from Pittsburg State University in 2001 with a biology degree, said he started in pottery in 1999. “It was a good escape from the chemistry and biology classes I was taking,” he said.
He operates a pottery business he calls HippyClay out of a studio at his Pittsburg home. He and his wife, Amanda, make a lot of functional earthenware, including lamps, vases, dinnerware, teapots and cups. The raku pieces, however, are strictly decorative because many of the glazes used contain lead, cadmium or other toxic substances.
Kirby said that most sales are online, and he’s sold his work as far away as India.
His wife has been making popular raku beads which have been sold a little closer to home, through Honey Frog Beads in Joplin, Mo.
“I do all the wheel work,” Kirby said. “It’s amazing the immediate gratification you get from the potter’s wheel. You can sit down with an idea and have it within minutes. Of course, the glazing and the firing are another matter.”
In his raku process, he fires his outdoor kiln up to around 2,000 degrees. After firing, pieces are taken from the kiln, glaze is applied to them and then they are placed in a container filled with some combustible material that smolders and consumes all the oxygen in the container.
“Sometimes I use things like pine needles or shredded newspapers,” Kirby said. “It’s the lack of oxygen in the container that brings the metallic fluxes up to the surface. You never know what you’re going to get, and that’s what keeps me coming back.”
The exhibit is open free to the entire community during Pittsburg Memorial Auditorium business hours.
