Richard Bresnahan American, Teapot 1995 Stoneware with natural glazes 6-3/4 inches high, 8 inches long 96.25.2a,b

Bresnahan's blend of REGIONAL materials with Japanese pottery traditions and his own artistic explorations results in a melding of cultures that retains the vitality and uniqueness of each. Several factors have influenced why the teapot looks the way it does.

Most important, the form of the teapot serves its function. Its balloon-shaped body helps prevent bitterness in the brewing of the tea leaves, assuring a well-made cup of tea. Bresnahan threw the two parts of the pot separately on a wheel and then joined them together. He chose this unusual double-gourd shape, a variation on a PACIFIC RIM form, primarily for the pleasant, gurgling sounds created when liquids are poured from it. Because the handle is usually the first part of a pot to break off (witness all the broken handles on ancient pottery), Bresnahan wanted to eliminate this problem. He collaborated with artist Paul Krueger to create a handle that allowed for greater structural integrity. Krueger experiments with different textures, colors, and weaving patterns for each of Bresnahan's teapot forms. The SYNERGY of two artists using two very different media--hard, fired clay and flexible reeds--has produced a pot with beauty, strength, and functionality beyond the capability of its materials if used separately.

Unlike glazed ware, which has a glassy, hard surface, this teapot has a warm, soft surface texture with flashes of rich color produced by the Tanegashima firing process. Bresnahan delights in the color possibilities of wood-fired pottery. In a world inundated with precisely named, manufactured chemical dyes, he prefers the "spirit of the color" created through this natural process.⁴

Notes

4. Louise Allison Cort and Malcolm Wright, "The Peters Valley Woodfire Conference," Studio Potter 12, no. 2 (June 1984), pp. 81- 88.

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