The audio file for this article was produced by the Ceramic Arts Network staff and not read by the author.
“Marrow,”
Hillary Kane’s recent exhibition of vessels and paper-clay paintings at Lucy Lacoste Gallery in Concord, Massachusetts, presented a deep exploration of the expressive potential of sculptural clay and the transformative properties of anagama
wood firing. Through evocative forms, intricate surfaces, and poetic titles, Kane asserts ceramics as a primary craft of our age—a global medium distinctively capable of fusing material and process with profound questions of bodily, intellectual,
and spiritual experience.
Context
In many ways, Kane’s work taps into the tradition of American wood-fired ceramics that has seen a revival over the last fifty years. This method—communal, laborious, and open to the unexpected— demands cooperation, curiosity, and patience.
The firing process itself is a sensory engagement: heat, smoke, and flame converge in a prolonged rhythmic dance that leaves unpredictable marks on each piece. The resulting surfaces tell familiar stories of transformation, disintegration, and re-integration.
The unpredictable chemistry of ash, flame paths, and temperature gradients makes each firing a revelation. Marrow contains many such revelations.
In discussing Kane’s work, it is also useful to situate it within the legacy of the Lucy Lacoste Gallery, which has long championed sculptural clay and wood-fired ceramics in particular, beginning with some important shows in the early 2000s such
as “Architectural Ceramics: Beyond the Body.” Over the years Lacoste has successfully represented artists such as Randy Johnston, Karen Karnes, Shozo Michikawa, Don Reitz, Tim Rowan, Jeff Shapiro, and Mark Shapiro, all of whom have pushed
the boundaries of what wood-fired clay can express. Kane’s work stands in dialog with these predecessors while charting its own path.
Her pieces operate within a vocabulary of organic forms that balance energetic motion, asymmetry, contours, and volume. The interplay of these features defines the aesthetics of her elemental art. Surface and texture are essential but the effects never
distract from more fundamental concerns: form always stands forward, shows through. In pieces like Sanctum, a small lidded box with a lip that undulates around its waist, Kane uses deep, irregular diagonal scoring as an exterior treatment
to heighten the sense of spiraling movement. Vigorous work went into making the craggy shape, but the result feels as effortless and inevitable as coming upon a curious stone on a backcountry trail. Ash highlights in light gray and amber contrast
with the bluish-gray clay body, and delight us in the way that lichen on granite does. They suggest an object of venerable age, and together with the rough folds and jutting corners that define the piece, solicit our imagination and desire to open
the box in order to see the mystery within. Kane’s title and exhibition notes expressly encourage this kind of interaction: “What do you house within your sanctum?”
An Open Invitation
Titles play an intriguing role in Kane’s practice. While they offer entry points into the work, they never limit the pieces’ potential for revelation. The true name of a piece, it seems, can only be discovered through engagement. This openness
invites viewers to participate in the work’s ongoing process of meaning-making. The gorgeous Migration: the world in a vessel is the most explicitly functional of the larger pieces and was shown to beautiful effect in the exhibit
as a vase holding a collection of twigs. Kane explains that the vessel embodies her family’s “bi-hemispheric” life as they move between Massachusetts and Indonesia twice a year. The soft outline of its oblong shape is encrusted with
velvety ash that readily suggests a planetary surface arrayed with archipelagos, oceans, and continents. Warm tones and incidental spots of mineral glitter help to convey a deep love for this global existence, chosen rather than forced upon the maker.
The Kardia series, comprised of faceted vertical forms open at the top, continues this celebration of surface and form. Kiln flashing, potent but not flashy, and nuanced glaze drips have been beautifully orchestrated to create different areas
of accent, without seeming arbitrary or contrived. Complex geometries, in turn, invite shadowing that encourages our exploration of what Kane defines in her notes, after the Greek word in the titles, as the heart, the center, the source of things.
Open forms such as these also suggest remnants of release—as if the clay itself has exhaled or birthed a flown moment. These vessels, flame-like in their curves and muscular in their thickness, hold the drama of their making within their poised
stillness.
A related set of closed forms named Sacral are mounted upright on charred wooden pedestals, which elevate the work physically and bridge the realms of sculpture and pottery. Kane self-consciously presents these pieces as “specimen vertebrae
of emotion” worthy of respect or devotion. Their torque is subtle, their fins supple. Nature’s influence is deeply embedded in the formal vocabulary of both series, with evocations of seed pods, shells, and husks that speak to a cosmic-to-microscopic
continuum. Her pieces bring into focus the self-similar structures that occur in both natural and artistic creation. Like many of the most successful vessels, these pieces seem to radiate beyond their physical limits, their lines suggesting motion
that extends into the surrounding space.
The most impressive works in the show articulate a space beyond their physical dimensions. Threshold, situated centrally in the exhibition gallery, is a challenging piece to describe and photograph, precisely because its power, imbued by scale
and volumetric sophistication, must be experienced in person. It stands upon a point as an inverted, hybridized cone or pyramid extending dramatically outward to its horizontal, concave top to form a ceremonial basin, wide and shallow, unlike any
other. Viewed on end, from above, and in the round, the piece reveals a set of multivalent transitions— literal and metaphorical—between shapely facets and raw eruptions, soft arcs and straight-edged rims, geologic terrain and architectural
order. The colors and textural effects of wood firing connote the implied history of some ancient artifact borne through the accidents of use, time, and weather to stand before us today. This is a piece to be placed, rather than handled. It defines
the room around it and orients the coordinates in which we exist around itself.
A similar composition, Volition, is a bit smaller than Threshold but no less compelling. It too defines a larger moment and bigger space than its actual size might otherwise denote. Its smooth and proportionally deeper crater pulls us
into the center of a drama of force and stasis around which the raw outer edges curl, suggesting violent impact and careful shaping reconciled by the hand of the maker and the fire of the kiln. The work’s compact yet monumental form is wonderfully
enhanced by a patina and texture that evoke cast bronze, an effect that is unique in the show. Kane’s notes for the piece indicate some of the thinking that she intends to portray in this drama: “The only power we truly hold in this existence
is the choice of perspective in any given moment. The enormity of our willful outlooks allows us to balance on tiptoe whilst carrying the world on our shoulders.”
On the Wall
The ten wall-hung pieces in the show, composed from paper clay and mixed media on canvas, offered a fascinating complement to the free-standing vessels. They cover some similar terrain: the pursuit of harmony between control and surrender, the metaphorical
possibilities of materials and process, and the shaping of the space around them. One of the surprises of these works is that, like with the rounded constructions on the pedestals beside them, they reward you with different looks from various angles
as the light reflects across their surfaces. A head-on perspective doesn’t quite reveal what they are up to, as each viewpoint reveals new relationships between texture, line, and form. Various relief and shadowing effects—from scoring,
cracking, brushing, marking, molding, and layering the materials—create a distinctive tactile appeal, although unlike with the vessels, the rules of engagement with the genre of painting preclude us from feeling them, weighing them, taking their
measure with our hands. A kind of frisson is generated from this noli me tangere (“touch me not”) encounter.
Across
several paintings, we find networks of sliced or traced lines of various thicknesses and prominence that could suggest magnified veining, cellulite, insect wings, webbing, and other natural phenomena. In the midst of the exhibit, the abstraction of
the wall pieces more directly speaks to the wood-fired vessels in their coloration, texture, and responsiveness to the accidental. But these are not just enhanced studies of glaze work or allusive fragments of implied three-dimensional vessels. They
stand on their own as dynamic explorations of surface and depth. Bounded in the decidedly unnatural shape of the square, they frame our experience of their presence as a bodily phenomenon related to our individual heights and the variable distances
from our eyes to the vertical plane where the pieces hang. Rhythmic scribbles and cracks create counterpoints to irregular zones of pigment, while intricate mark making—hidden text, brushwork, and sgraffito—draws the viewer closer and
hints at psychological dimensions. The three largest paintings, Deluge, Limen, and Whisper (all 4×4 ft. (1.2×1.2 m)), have an atmospheric quality, reading as dreamy mindscapes that let your attention play across
their corrugated highlights or delve into their folds and fields of mute color. Are these paintings or some new form? The wall pieces feel experimental, and not quite yet arrived at the level of successful aesthetic synthesis that the vessels have
achieved. There may still be some passage through creative fire that they need to undergo. It will be exciting to see where Kane takes this exploration.
Kane’s show is ultimately a meditation on the forces that shape us and the world around us. Her ceramics, like those of so many gifted practitioners of wood firing, hold opposites together: fragility and strength, humility and heroism, spontaneity
and deliberation. They remind us that the work of craft is not merely about making objects, but about resolving forces that are often beyond our conscious understanding. Through clay and fire, Hillary Kane crafts a cosmology that is at once personal
and universal—a testament to the enduring power of ceramics to explore, express, and transform.
the author Gary Roberts is a ceramics collector and past president of the Society of Arts and Crafts in Boston, Massachusetts.
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The audio file for this article was produced by the Ceramic Arts Network staff and not read by the author.
Context
In many ways, Kane’s work taps into the tradition of American wood-fired ceramics that has seen a revival over the last fifty years. This method—communal, laborious, and open to the unexpected— demands cooperation, curiosity, and patience. The firing process itself is a sensory engagement: heat, smoke, and flame converge in a prolonged rhythmic dance that leaves unpredictable marks on each piece. The resulting surfaces tell familiar stories of transformation, disintegration, and re-integration. The unpredictable chemistry of ash, flame paths, and temperature gradients makes each firing a revelation. Marrow contains many such revelations.
In discussing Kane’s work, it is also useful to situate it within the legacy of the Lucy Lacoste Gallery, which has long championed sculptural clay and wood-fired ceramics in particular, beginning with some important shows in the early 2000s such as “Architectural Ceramics: Beyond the Body.” Over the years Lacoste has successfully represented artists such as Randy Johnston, Karen Karnes, Shozo Michikawa, Don Reitz, Tim Rowan, Jeff Shapiro, and Mark Shapiro, all of whom have pushed the boundaries of what wood-fired clay can express. Kane’s work stands in dialog with these predecessors while charting its own path.
Her pieces operate within a vocabulary of organic forms that balance energetic motion, asymmetry, contours, and volume. The interplay of these features defines the aesthetics of her elemental art. Surface and texture are essential but the effects never distract from more fundamental concerns: form always stands forward, shows through. In pieces like Sanctum, a small lidded box with a lip that undulates around its waist, Kane uses deep, irregular diagonal scoring as an exterior treatment to heighten the sense of spiraling movement. Vigorous work went into making the craggy shape, but the result feels as effortless and inevitable as coming upon a curious stone on a backcountry trail. Ash highlights in light gray and amber contrast with the bluish-gray clay body, and delight us in the way that lichen on granite does. They suggest an object of venerable age, and together with the rough folds and jutting corners that define the piece, solicit our imagination and desire to open the box in order to see the mystery within. Kane’s title and exhibition notes expressly encourage this kind of interaction: “What do you house within your sanctum?”
An Open Invitation
Titles play an intriguing role in Kane’s practice. While they offer entry points into the work, they never limit the pieces’ potential for revelation. The true name of a piece, it seems, can only be discovered through engagement. This openness invites viewers to participate in the work’s ongoing process of meaning-making. The gorgeous Migration: the world in a vessel is the most explicitly functional of the larger pieces and was shown to beautiful effect in the exhibit as a vase holding a collection of twigs. Kane explains that the vessel embodies her family’s “bi-hemispheric” life as they move between Massachusetts and Indonesia twice a year. The soft outline of its oblong shape is encrusted with velvety ash that readily suggests a planetary surface arrayed with archipelagos, oceans, and continents. Warm tones and incidental spots of mineral glitter help to convey a deep love for this global existence, chosen rather than forced upon the maker.
The Kardia series, comprised of faceted vertical forms open at the top, continues this celebration of surface and form. Kiln flashing, potent but not flashy, and nuanced glaze drips have been beautifully orchestrated to create different areas of accent, without seeming arbitrary or contrived. Complex geometries, in turn, invite shadowing that encourages our exploration of what Kane defines in her notes, after the Greek word in the titles, as the heart, the center, the source of things. Open forms such as these also suggest remnants of release—as if the clay itself has exhaled or birthed a flown moment. These vessels, flame-like in their curves and muscular in their thickness, hold the drama of their making within their poised stillness.
A related set of closed forms named Sacral are mounted upright on charred wooden pedestals, which elevate the work physically and bridge the realms of sculpture and pottery. Kane self-consciously presents these pieces as “specimen vertebrae of emotion” worthy of respect or devotion. Their torque is subtle, their fins supple. Nature’s influence is deeply embedded in the formal vocabulary of both series, with evocations of seed pods, shells, and husks that speak to a cosmic-to-microscopic continuum. Her pieces bring into focus the self-similar structures that occur in both natural and artistic creation. Like many of the most successful vessels, these pieces seem to radiate beyond their physical limits, their lines suggesting motion that extends into the surrounding space.
The most impressive works in the show articulate a space beyond their physical dimensions. Threshold, situated centrally in the exhibition gallery, is a challenging piece to describe and photograph, precisely because its power, imbued by scale and volumetric sophistication, must be experienced in person. It stands upon a point as an inverted, hybridized cone or pyramid extending dramatically outward to its horizontal, concave top to form a ceremonial basin, wide and shallow, unlike any other. Viewed on end, from above, and in the round, the piece reveals a set of multivalent transitions— literal and metaphorical—between shapely facets and raw eruptions, soft arcs and straight-edged rims, geologic terrain and architectural order. The colors and textural effects of wood firing connote the implied history of some ancient artifact borne through the accidents of use, time, and weather to stand before us today. This is a piece to be placed, rather than handled. It defines the room around it and orients the coordinates in which we exist around itself.
A similar composition, Volition, is a bit smaller than Threshold but no less compelling. It too defines a larger moment and bigger space than its actual size might otherwise denote. Its smooth and proportionally deeper crater pulls us into the center of a drama of force and stasis around which the raw outer edges curl, suggesting violent impact and careful shaping reconciled by the hand of the maker and the fire of the kiln. The work’s compact yet monumental form is wonderfully enhanced by a patina and texture that evoke cast bronze, an effect that is unique in the show. Kane’s notes for the piece indicate some of the thinking that she intends to portray in this drama: “The only power we truly hold in this existence is the choice of perspective in any given moment. The enormity of our willful outlooks allows us to balance on tiptoe whilst carrying the world on our shoulders.”
On the Wall
The ten wall-hung pieces in the show, composed from paper clay and mixed media on canvas, offered a fascinating complement to the free-standing vessels. They cover some similar terrain: the pursuit of harmony between control and surrender, the metaphorical possibilities of materials and process, and the shaping of the space around them. One of the surprises of these works is that, like with the rounded constructions on the pedestals beside them, they reward you with different looks from various angles as the light reflects across their surfaces. A head-on perspective doesn’t quite reveal what they are up to, as each viewpoint reveals new relationships between texture, line, and form. Various relief and shadowing effects—from scoring, cracking, brushing, marking, molding, and layering the materials—create a distinctive tactile appeal, although unlike with the vessels, the rules of engagement with the genre of painting preclude us from feeling them, weighing them, taking their measure with our hands. A kind of frisson is generated from this noli me tangere (“touch me not”) encounter.
Kane’s show is ultimately a meditation on the forces that shape us and the world around us. Her ceramics, like those of so many gifted practitioners of wood firing, hold opposites together: fragility and strength, humility and heroism, spontaneity and deliberation. They remind us that the work of craft is not merely about making objects, but about resolving forces that are often beyond our conscious understanding. Through clay and fire, Hillary Kane crafts a cosmology that is at once personal and universal—a testament to the enduring power of ceramics to explore, express, and transform.
the author Gary Roberts is a ceramics collector and past president of the Society of Arts and Crafts in Boston, Massachusetts.
Unfamiliar with any terms in this article? Browse our glossary of pottery terms!
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