Blue & White Porcelain by Colleen Gallagher and John Benn

Designed and made by hand at our ceramics studio on Harstine Island (near Olympia, WA),
this fine-art porcelain pottery takes a traditional format in an unconventional direction.
This line of work is not woodfired.

Porcelain clay is thrown on the potter's wheel or hand-formed from slabs of soft clay. It is hand-decorated with
original drawings and paintings of natural images. John and Colleen are avid gardeners, and the decoration on  
our pottery and tiles is inspired by our gardens and forest on Harstine Island.

Decoration is a combination of underglaze brushwork painting, incised and inlaid line drawing (Mishima),
original artist-made serigraph transfer drawing, wax-resist brushwork and overglaze painting.
The medium is cobalt blue oxide with a clear glaze on white porcelain. The processes involve
at least three firings of each piece. We are trying to achieve a depth of layers in the image
which cannot be "read" at first glance but which reveals itself to the viewer over time.

Incising through layers of wax and cobalt oxide brushwork. The white lines
will be filled with cobalt oxide to become dark. Firing turns the oxide blue.