Thợ gốm Jonathan Cross: Làm chậu cây Bonsai trên sa mạc

Carved mud: Ceramist Jonathan Cross creates pots in the desert 

• Text: Bonsai Focus Studio Photography: Jonathan Cross

CV

• Jonathan Cross (38)
• Born in: Dallas, Texas, USA
• Married to: Christine Cross
• Children: 4
• Education: MFA Ceramics, Arizona State University
• Profession: Artist
• Into bonsai for: 10 Years

How did you get into bonsai ceramics?

I’ve always been interested in bonsai. I made a few containers when I first started ceramics and tried to engage with the bonsai community in Dallas and Fort Worth with little enthusiasm. Trying to juggle bonsai and ceramics seemed like a folly, one or the other was going to suffer, or both, so I committed to ceramics which I am more passionate about. I actually started ceramics because of my cactus and succulent collection and a desire to have more interesting containers for them as well as the basic terra-cotta.

How did you acquire the skills?

My first ceramics instructor was Dan Hammett of Dallas, Texas. He gave me a fantastic foundation in the technical aspects of ceramics, so that I wouldn’t be hindered by a lack of knowhow. These skill sets included kiln building, firing kilns, clay body development and clay forming techniques. These skill sets serve me every day.

Why ceramics?

Clay has such transformative properties. When it comes from the ground it’s in a dry crumbly state, you add water to it and it becomes a wet, plastic mud. As it dries it’s like leather (a state I particularly enjoy because that is when I carve it), then it has a sandstone like hardness. While it is still semi moist, clay is very receptive to actions imposed on it: tearing, cutting, indentations, all of these actions are recorded in the clay. When you put the clay into the kiln and subject it to heat further transformations take place. The removal of carbon, then free water, then sulphur, then chemical water, then the alteration of quartz structures. At higher temperatures the clay becomes molten and open to atmospheric conditions in the kiln. I fire with wood so the wood ashes begin to fuse with the surface of the clay. After the firing as the kiln cools many of these changes crystalize and harden into a new material, stone like, and able to stand up to passing millennia

What do you like about bonsai?

I love tree trunks. Especially sweeping juniper trunks that look like a Hokusai wave. There’s the huge thick craggy bark trunks with moss and lichens growing all over them. Then there are the twisted sculpted branches rather like the webbing of Spiderman.

What about the glazes?

I don’t use any glazes with my work. All of the colours and surfaces are developed between the interaction of the wood ash and clay bodies I use. To achieve different colours I alter the clay or change the type of wood with which I fire the kiln.

Electricity or fire?

I have a wood kiln and that is what I use to fire everything right now. I hope to make a salt-fired kiln in the future.

What do think of Japanese pots?

As I said before, I really love unadorned tokoname containers from Japan and even own a few. As far as the glazes go I have never been a fan.

What was the most difficult or time-consuming pot you ever made?

Right now actually I am making a large 45 cm x 40 cm x 40 cm vessel for a bonsai. Because of the way in which I construct the form out of a solid block of clay the weight is particularly challenging. Trying to move the form around to carve on all of the sides is difficult.

What was your worst mistake?

My worst mistake so far has been to put in the kiln a piece made out of a clay that fires to a lower temperature. The piece melted in the firing, ruining the kiln shelf and all the pieces that were being fired underneath it. Always test your clays.

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