Sodo Gallery. Beatričė Kelerienė Anagama Ceramic Art Center
The Sodo Gallery of ceramist Beatričė Kelerienė presents exclusive wood-fired ceramics collections created by the author at the Anagama Ceramic Art Center.
Visitors are invited to see and purchase author’s works: “high-fired” ceramic sculptures, vases, collectible tableware. The author has studied the wood-fired Anagama technique in Japan for many years. Her one-of-a-kind works are close to traditional home pottery forms, they are fired and decorated using archaic techniques from various countries. In the teaware collections you will find brewing teapots, Chavans for whipping matcha tea, small green tea Hohin teapots, cups for herbal tea and tea party sweets.
The works presented in the Sodo Gallery are not only of special shapes, but also made of special clays, suitable for firing in a special wood-fired blast furnace in Anagama. In the Anagama kiln, the products acquire extraordinary beauty and resistance. At a temperature of 1300°C, the water contained in the clay molecules evaporates so much that the ceramic products simply turn to stone. At such heat, wood ashes melt, and the flames use them to draw on the surface of my crockery. In Anagama, ceramics are fired for at least five days, and long-term firing gives special surface textures, shades that flow from earth tones to fiery glows. Anagama firing is a special skill in decorating ceramics with touches of flame.
In the SODO Gallery you will also find crockery created using the Raku technique, which look fragile, as if cracked. A very deceptive beauty. In fact, they are quite strong and resistant, fired at 1000°C. The impressive cracking occurs when a heated, glowing vessel is taken out of the oven and thrown into wood sawdust. A sudden small fire breaks out in the sawdust, a reducing atmosphere is created in the suffocating flames, and thus metal-like particles appear. Due to the sudden change in temperature, the surface of the glazes cracks, and the hundreds of tiny cracks that appear are filled with soot particles. The crockery created in this way seems to be entwined with a barely visible network of cracks, light reflections refract on the cracked surface, and colors seem to acquire a third dimension.
The ceramics of the Ash Glaze collection are created by firing them in a wood-fired blast furnace. This crockery is decorated with molten mixtures of wood ash, ground stone dust and various types of clay. In the blast furnace, these materials melt to form the so-called ash glaze, and by creating a reduction or oxidation atmosphere in the furnace, specific shades and shines are obtained. Like Anagama crockery, it is extremely resistant, although fired for a much shorter time. Glazes obtained from an alloy of natural materials gives the crockery a specific beauty. The decor of this collection is unique not only in its material naturalness, but also in the harmony of colors that have formed as if by chance.
The Sodo Gallery offers classes for beginners and advanced students who want to understand the specifics of wood-fired ceramics.