John Putnam creates functional pottery using stoneware and porcelain clays and mixes most of his own glazes. Shape and line and curve are all fundemental parts of his designs, if you get that right the surface decoration just adds to the piece. He has been throwing regularly for about 5 years but his first pot was thrown about 30 years ago. He has taken classes and attended workshops at Terra Incognito over the years to bring his skill level up to where it is now.

 

The pots are wheel thrown and about half are high fire and half mid fire. The high fire work being done through Terra Incognito and the mid fire work done with his kiln at home. 
 

He uses painting and relief techniques to bring out patterns on some of the pieces and just lets the glaze be the expression on others. He blends his long history of studying Chinese Brush Painting with his ceramics with some pieces showing landscape scenes or stands of bamboo. Others are more simple designs with simplicity the goal. 

 

He inherited a love of photography from his father and incorporates that in the photographing his pots tying many different disciplines together in one pursuit. His web site is www.putnamdesign.com