Gunmetal Bowl	Orange Cascade Sphere	Red-Orange Flecked Bowl	Red-Orange Oval Form
Burgundy/Black Neck Bottle	Earth Stone Grey Flecked Bowl	Jade Green Bowl	Oil Spot Bowl
Black Stone Lava Bowl	Deep Red Bowl with Gold Overlay	Yellow Craze Bowl	Pale Celadon Bowl with Rose Flash
Peach Bloom Low Bottle	Earth Green Flared Bowl	Deep Red Pot with Black Rim	Black and White Bowl

 

Craters from Fire: Ceramics by James Lovera This book was published in conjunction with a 2006 exhibition at the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California. Essays by Diana L. Daniels, Assistant Curator, Crocker Art Museum, and Robert D. Mowry, Head of the Department of Asian Art, Arthur M Sackler Museum, Harvard University and Senior Lecturer on Chinese and Korean Art, Department of the History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University. Hard cover, bound in black cloth with photo and embossed printing. 54 pp., 50 illus., 10 x 9-3/4 in.   SOLD OUT

 

Visit the Center to see more of James Lovera's pieces in the exhibition.

By concentrating on perfecting form, James Lovera unleashes upon the "canvas" of his chargers and bowls interpretations of the textures and hues that surround him in nature. His vessels exemplify midcentury Modernist concerns for the clarity of form and function, but Lovera has also been a student of Song Dynasty (960-1279 c.e.) ceramics, which are among the highest achievements in Chinese porcelain. Lovera was moved by the regard during that historical period for simplicity and the distillation of form to its essence. He has also pushed the chemistry of his glazes to fit to porcelain like a skin.

Lovera is best known for his crater glazes, taking them, beginning in the 1970s, to unprecedented levels of lathered, volcanic definition. Since 2000, Lovera has revisited his longstanding crater formulas, reinventing them as necessary to create surfaces that are now fully dimensional and riddled with thousands of vesicles. Lovera's mastery of both material and kiln is required to prevent the viscosity of the glaze from shattering a bowl's thin walls.