Crazy by Design
Fine Art Gallery and Custom Framing
Steven Brownell Hall
Anagama or cave kiln, is a traditional Japanese wood firing. A single firing is incredibly labor intensive and time consuming; potters spend as much as five days preparing and loading the kiln, four days firing, and two days cleaning (grinding fluxed ash off kiln shelves, posts, etc.). A typical firing starts at six in the morning with constant stoking through to midnight. Stoking the fire to cone 13, approximately 2300 degrees Fahrenheit, consumes one to two cords of wood per firing. The ash from the burning wood is the primary means of surface decoration; it forms a natural glaze in a variety of textures and colors depending on numerous variables including temperature, time, oxidation, reduction, wood consumption, and the arrangement of work in the kiln. The potter paints with fire by visualizing the flame’s path moving through the kiln.
Hall’s work is reverential. Inspired by the abstract, he creates pieces that do not explicitly represent a person, place, or thing. “My intent is to creatively interpret the physical world and affectively emulate the experiences it generates.” He explains that the interaction between an individual’s exteroception, sensitivity to stimuli originating outside of the body, and cognitive interpretation creates momentous experiences. Hall wants the experience to be inherently reverential stimulating the audience through the senses.
Form, color, and texture are vital elements of his work; they provide the basis for individual and collective expression. The three elements stimulate the viewer’s psychophysiology generating an experience of reverie. The combination of formal structure and surface treatment allows one to develop ideas pertaining to the ontology of the object and the experiences therein. Together form, color, and texture generate a state of being that one can relate to with great fervency.
Hall began working in clay as a student at Calaveras High School but discovered his passion for ceramics at Columbia Community College. Hall went on to earn a B.A. in Fine Arts with an emphasis in studio ceramics at San Francisco State University. He currently resides in Mountain Ranch, California.
