Wood-fired pottery with a Japanese flair

By Felicia Menard
HippoPress.com

The best part about contacting pottery artist John Baymore is listening to his answering machine message in Japanese.

Baymore speaks "survival" Japanese, a result of spending time in the country for events such as the recent Aomori International Wood Fire Festival in Goshogawara-shi, Japan. Held in August, the event drew 50,000 people into a stadium to watch 30 Japanese potters and 70 international potters at work.

"Japanese pottery has always called to me," Baymore said. An instructor at the New Hampshire Institute of Art, Baymore has been firing his creations at River Bend Pottery, his Wilton studio, since 1977.

"My work is subdued and quiet in tone. It invites closer inspection because of its depth and complexity," Baymore said. "Handcrafted claywork satisfies our human senses, offering aesthetic balance in an increasingly high-tech world. My work is meant to be explored with the eye as well as the hand. My work is meant to be lived with, reflected upon and appreciated."

Long a fan of Japanese pottery-especially tea ceremony wares and folk pottery-Baymore specializes in a process of baking the pottery called wood firing.

"Wood firing offers an end result that can't be obtained any other way," Baymore said. "During firing, wood becomes more than heat. The fine particles of the wood ash settle over the wares as the kiln heats up. Ash begins to melt and fuses onto the glazes, which causes the surface of the clay to become glossy where there is no glaze. The ash that flies through the kiln flows like water flows. The marks of the fire are documentation of the flow of flame in the kiln.

The difference with wood firing is that in a sense, the potter continues to control and decorate the work during the firing."

The artist is a specialist in the design and construction of fuel fired kilns. He has built numerous kilns for professional potters and institutions in the northeast. Baymore has designed and consulted for Cutter/Eagle Ceramics as well as designed the Cutter Cross Draft Kiln and modified their Brookfield kiln. Baymore acted as consultant to the period recreation of the Colonial-era wood-fired bottle kiln located at Old Sturbridge Village, Mass. Baymore's favorite projects involve building wood kilns, especially the multi-chambered climbing kilns (noborigama) like the one he uses in his studio.

Baymore's extensive family history in ceramics dates back to the mid- to late-1800s with the Mercer & Cook potteries of Trenton, N.J. In 1996, he was awarded the prestigious Judge's Special Prize in the first Mashiko Japan Ceramics Competition and was invited to travel to Mashiko to receive the award. In August of 2001, he was featured in Yokoto Masuo's book on Americans that have been influenced by Japanese culture. A commission in the summer of 2001 by Nano Via, a U.S. high-tech firm, presented Baymore's work to the president of Hitachi, Japan as well as to the president of the American division of Hitachi.

Unlike traditional craftspeople in Japan, Baymore is free of the restraints of strict vessel form.

"We live in a world community and influences can and do come from all corners of the globe. New ideas for the sculptural aspects of my vessel forms and many of my pieces are intended as pure statements on how the form relates to space," he said. Baymore continues to explore the boundaries of art and craft. It would be easy for the artist to appropriate Japan's rich style and vivid history without understanding the Japanese way of life. But Baymore's use of the culture is honest and ethical.

Baymore has taught at Mass. College of Art, Boston University's Program in Artisanry and the Danforth Museum School. He conducts frequent workshops in schools and craft centers throughout New England. His work has appeared in regional, national and international juried exhibitions as well as faculty shows.

Check out the artist's Web site at www.johnbaymore.com. Contact him via email at JBaymore@compuserve.com.

Felicia Menard can be reached at hippo@hippopress.com