Cedar Pocket: Solo Exhibit (With Giveaway!)

What I try to convey in my work is that feeling I get when I see a bird in its natural habitat. That snippet in time that makes me feel a little childlike wonder.
Melissa Brown of Cedar Pocket

Melissa Brown has a strong connection to the natural world; one that is clearly represented in her choice of materials, colors, and creations. She lives in California where, in the hillsides outside her window, she can see copper, rutile, and iron. Not coincidentally these metals form some of the base colorants in the glazes she uses.

She quite accurately refers to her little pots as “small treasures”. Look how the gently ridged body of the pot is perfectly set off by the little hand-formed flowers.

Her sense of whimsy and humor shines through in her work. This piece is called A Cat’s Dream. Look closely: there’s a cat, a mouse. a ball of yarn, and a bird. And don’t forget this little tableau sits on a bowl only 4 inches high.

Melissa also makes sculpted lidded jars like this one with a carved bird finial. It’s food and dishwasher safe. Violet’s thinking sugar bowl!

What will you do with that sugar? Spoon it into your tea which awaits in this darling ceramic cup embellished with blue Forget Me Nots.

It should come as no surprise that Melissa is as charming and down to earth as her handiwork. Read on for a glimpse into how Cedar Pocket came to be (and for the coolest crow story ever!).

Curator V: In your profile, you talk about the peaceful state of mind you get when you create. Can you tell us more about what creating brings to your life?

Art therapy! The world can be a big, noisy, exasperating place. Working with my hands, whether it’s playing with clay, or painting, or planting my garden, focuses my physical energy on something tangible. Once my hands are busy, I can let my mind wander or I can focus on a problem or a challenge and try to find creative answers. For me, it’s a lot like the expression “just sleep on it”. I almost always walk away from a creative project more focused, peaceful, and fulfilled.

Curator V: As a fellow bird watcher, I love that you’ve kept a life list–a running list of all the birds you’ve positively identified. How does bird watching affect your art?

I think what birding brings to my life even, more than the thrill of adding a new sighting to my list, is the heightened awareness it’s given me. It has become habit to be keenly aware of my surroundings. I listen more acutely. I look at tree tops and inner branches as well as a whole tree.

Birding is also a way for me to mark and remember moments of my life. Maybe because all my senses are engaged when I’m watching, I tend to have full sensory memories associated with different birds I’ve seen. It was a hot day in my garden the first time I saw an American Goldfinch on a sunflower back there. It was a warm spring day when my husband and I watched that Golden Eagle play in the thermals in the valley in Yellowstone. It was SO cold when I was trying to photograph a chickadee who kept lifting one foot and then the other off a snowy branch trying to keep them warm at Big Bear Lake.

A few years ago I adopted a crow that fell out of his nest. He was the UGLIEST bird I’d ever seen. He looked like a softball with pin feathers. I grew to love that bird so much it hurt. He’d fly around my studio and bathe in a big antique enamel washtub and tear apart newspapers and generally cause mayhem. But then he’d sit on my shoulder and preen my hair ever so gently and make noises usually reserved for mom crows. He’d cuddle in the crook of my arm and I’d preen him and he’d fall fast asleep. It was a wonderful time. Letting him go free was so difficult, but he bonded with a wild crow that would come and visit him and it was time. He still comes back to visit, calling me from the sycamores in the backyard. We have some new neighbors that don’t know my crow story and I’m sure they think I’m insane, talking to a crow in the tree! Oh well. I’m an artist, people expect me to be a little wacky.

The avatar I use for my business Cedar Pocket was a moment I captured in Lone Pine, California in the Eastern Sierra’s where they filmed so many Western movies. I was there to photograph sunrise over Mount Whitney. I turned around to enjoy that deep turquoise sky that happens just before dawn and two crows were up on a rock just above me gently clucking to each other, and well, it was just so sweet.

Curator V: You’ve been a photographer and painter amongst other things. How did you end up as a clay artist? Do you find yourself being drawn towards other materials?

Oddly enough, looking back, I think I was always a clay artist, I just didn’t realize it. As a little girl I used to play in the mud a lot. Growing up in Southern California, we learned in elementary school about using our local clay soil to make adobe bricks. Sounded good to me. I’d make little animals and pots and things and leave them in the sun to dry. They’d always crumble as soon as I touched them – or sometimes just on their own. Later I went through my Play Dough, bread dough, and polymer clay phases. My Fimo work was published in several books in the early 80’s.

About five years ago my mother became ill and I had to shut down a successful gourd business I’d had for over 15 years (www.Gourdfolk.com). After a while I was going crazy having so little creative outlet and I signed up for an oil painting class at a local adult ed. Turned out if you signed up for oil painting you got clay and watercolor too. Pretty soon I was only doing clay and my oils and watercolors were idle. The rest is history. I don’t know whether I’ll evolve into other mediums again, but for now at least I’m in bitten. It feels like I’m home. I’ve gone full circle.

Curator V: Your embellishments are as charming as can be. Do you know what you will make when you pick up the clay or is discovering that part of the process?

For me the clay has a voice of its own. Part of my getting better as a clay artist has been learning to listen to the clay. I can sit down, for instance, intending to make birds, and all the bits turn into cats or mice or flowers. I try to disengage my analytical left brain and just let my creative right brain have some fun.

Curator V: Could you walk us through the process of creating one of your pieces from start to finish?

While I do some hand built pieces, most of my current work starts with throwing a cylindrical shape on a potter’s wheel. I don’t generally set out to do a particular size or shape. Each of the steps in throwing fascinates me and brings something to the table. Just centering the clay on the wheel centers me. From there I may get little bitty pots or bigger bowls. It depends on the day and the clay I’m using. I recently started using a variety of clay very much like porcelain. It has no sand in it and is smooth as silk and likes to be thrown larger. I’m following its muse. Look for bigger pieces in my shop very soon.

After letting a thrown cylinder dry until it’s “leather hard”, it’s time to trim the foot ring. While some potter’s don’t do this – it’s fine to just smooth the bottom of a pot – I feel like it’s a nice surprise to find a perfect little circle on the bottom of a pot. Sometimes I make a double or triple foot ring, or an exceptionally tall foot ring that becomes more of a pedestal, as a gift to the pot.

Next comes the part which is probably most fun for me. I place the pot on my workbench and I pick up little bits of willing clay and let my fingers play. It’s odd but I really have learned not to question. If I follow the clay, instead of the other way around, my work is much better. After I’m satisfied with a piece I sign it.

Depending on the weather, it takes two to three days for a pot and it’s embellishments to dry to the point where it can be bisque fired. This is the process where all the remaining moisture is removed from the clay and it hardens enough to be coated with a liquid glaze without damaging it.

The last decision that has to be made is how to glaze a piece. For me this is exciting, frustrating, and challenging. It’s not like painting where you can see the colors and correct and modify if you don’t like the effect. Raw glazes are not the color they turn into after they are exposed to heat. An unfired celadon green glaze is red. Cobalt is grayish. I fire at public kilns. The pieces are gas fired at roughly 2300 degrees Fahrenheit. All kinds of things happen at that temperature. Glaze can run off the bottom or stick perfectly just where you’ve put it depending on its chemistry. Colors can vary depending where a piece is loaded in the kiln. It’s always like Christmas morning opening a kiln and seeing what you’ve gotten.

Here’s your chance to incorporate a little bit of Melissa’s world into yours! She’s giving away one of her wee white vases with a bird perching on the rim. As a super fun touch, she’s added green and amber glass to the inside of the vase making it look like the bird is gazing into a pool of water. To enter, visit Cedar Pocket then come back here and leave a comment with your favorite item. One winner will be chosen at random next Sunday, December 6th.