Raku Pottery - Watercolor Paintings - Beaded Jewelry
About the Artists:
Deborah J. Kane: hand-built pottery, Raku glazing, watercolors and jewelry
Paul L. Turpin: wheel-thrown pottery
Deborah J. Kane Pottery, Watercolors, Jewelry I am a typical artsy-type person, working a full time day job to support my creative habits, second only to my need for food and shelter. I have always drawn anything that interested me, and played with painting in acrylics. I decided one day to try my hand at watercolors and couldn’t get anything but mud. I signed up for a watercolor course at American River Junior College. My instructor was Gary Pruner and he had a powerful influence on his students, including me. He was a great teacher and motivator. I saw many of his students come out of his classes painting in a style so similar to his that I could pick out the work of one of his students in anywhere. I didn’t want that to happen to my work so I set out to find my own individual style. I believe I have achieved that. One of my clients commissioned Keeper of the Fire for an exiting Office Manager. I was not there when the painting was revealed but I was told that as soon as she saw the painting she said It's a Deborah Kane! Now, there is something to make my head swell up! My work is not widely known but it is well known in the community of personal growth enthusiasts that I am a part of. Pottery work is something that my roommate Paul gets credit for getting me into. Shortly after I moved into his house in Placerville, CA about 10 years ago he suggested that we take a pottery class at the local Parks & Rec and I readily agreed. We took a class from Katherine Mitchell, local potter they call The Fish Lady for her Raku fish. We have been playing in the mud since. I started out throwing on the wheel but my carpel tunnel syndrome prevented me from going very far with it. After my surgery I never tried it again. I really love hand-building other types of clay works and leave the throwing to Paul. Jewelry making is a natural choice for me because I am a jewelry HOUND! I love it. However, being able to put beads together in a unique and interesting way is not that easy! Just like learning to change my method of design from watercolor to pottery where everything is 3-D and detail is not only not necessary, but nearly impossible, I had to learn how to envision the beads made into a piece of jewelry. Some beaders buy what they are drawn to so they have lots to choose from when they get inspired. I do some of that also, but for the most part it works best for me to find a focal bead that I love and then find other elements that want to go with it. I am a beginner for sure, learning by trial and error and avidly reading books and magazines. I hope to someday learn to do silversmith work also. Thank you so much for taking a look at our work on these pages. Many artists say they create only for their own satisfaction and do not care what others think. I personally love to share my work with others and it is just as satisfying when it pleases someone else as it is when it pleases me! |
 Paul L. Turpin
Wheel-Thrown Pottery Retired, and loving it! He is not likely to write this column about himself so I am going to do it for him. Paul is my roomie and, the first thing he always tells people is; we’re roomies, not bunkies! We may not be a hot item like people sometimes assume, but we make quite a pottery team, that is for sure. He loves to play in the mud but is not wild about glazing so that’s where I come in. He will glaze a pot once in awhile but he is rarely satisfied with the result. With Raku, as I always say, it's a crapshoot! You have to make your plans the best you can then let go of the result and learn to like what you get. It dials up all of one's control issues! The Raku glazes are never the same, depending on how much reduction they get, how thick the clay body is, how much and how carefully the glaze is applied, and what shape the piece is. Often the prettiest colors are on the inside, which seems unfair. He likes to do horsehair pots and is very good at patiently placing the horsehair one strand at a time on the hot pot. Because of that he gets some beautiful patterns. If the horsehair is just tossed at the pot… remember it's hot and you are putting your fingers right next to it…you get some clumpy gray smoky areas that he and I don’t find very attractive. He also likes the ones we call Golden Glow. He applies a glaze all over the pot, usually white/clear or light green, light blue or maybe purple. After the pot is removed from the kiln it is not put in the reduction, but placed on a turntable instead and then he sprays a liquid iron compound on it, which burns onto the hot glaze. The smoke is pretty toxic so he keeps upwind! The results are very interesting and usually are anywhere from burnt orange to a deep metal-like dark purple. He was the one who said he always wanted to take a pottery class, and, shortly after I moved in, he signed us up. For the first few weeks he just watched. Then one day he got on the wheel and started throwing. I guess he had studied it enough and was ready to go! And GO he did. He produces more pottery than I can glaze so we have firing days and he invites everyone he knows. He will sell you a pot pretty cheap and you can fire it yourself any way you want and take it home that day. Of course, there is a glazing/firing fee for the kiln operator too. Paul is a potter who subscribes to the the clay does what it wants to school of thought, or so he tells me. He rarely sets out with the intent of coaxing the clay into a shape he has in mind, but rather sits down at the wheel knowing that this particular clump of mud will tell him what it wants to be. Playing in the mud is his therapy, I think, and the fact that we get pots out of the deal is a happy side effect! |
