1. 12/4/15, 10:45 AMIpswich potter makes it to break it - Gate House
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By Dan Mac Alpine
December 03. 2015 7:43PM
Ipswich potter makes it to break it
Irina Okula makes vessels like these
using pottery pieces she's broken.
Courtesy photo
Irina Okula breaks a piece to make a piece.
The Lakemans Lane potter creates nationally and internationally known vessels of contrasts. United and fractured. Of
earthy clay and clean, fragile lines. Of ethereal, translucent color and shadow. Blues. Rusty reds. Yellow. Shades of
black and gray. They all bleed into each other and end abruptly. Cut. Interrupted. Juxtaposed.
It’s an effect Okula says that she can only get by breaking the original piece: “The results produced by the cracking
process yield patterns and colors which would be impossible to create deliberately by more traditional techniques such
as glazing or painting.”
Okula’s process of creation, deconstruction and reconstruction earned her the top ceramics prize at this year’s
Smithsonian Craft Show — automatically designating her among the country’s top ceramic artisans. Just getting into
the show bestows great honor on the artist. This was the first Smithsonian Okula had ever applied to. The jury receives
several thousand applications for only 129 slots in the annual show.
“I think the reason I got the award at the Smithsonian show is because my work is so different,” Okula said. “No one
else is doing this work.”
Maybe that’s because Okula must create a vessel. Break it. And then reassemble it. It is an act of courage and faith.
“My mission is for the final result to take the striking visual texture and contrasts of the shards and mold them into the original shape and form of the piece,
producing a more exciting and interesting work,” Okula said, cracks in her hands filled with clay, nails chipped here and there and blue, clay streaks running
up her forearms.
And maybe no one else works as Okula does because she has been working her craft into an art since 1971 when she graduated from Southern Illinois
University with her MFA in ceramics. She and her husband, Dennis, raised two children and Okula then returned to her pottery, starting teaching at the
Governor’s Academy in Byfield in 1987, where she still teaches.
The process
Okula throws a vessel to about 20 inches high x 8 inches in diameter x only 1/8 of an inch thick on a potter’s wheel. The piece then air-dries. She’ll polish it
with a smooth stone that fits in her palm. She then dips the vessel into a solution of clay, sodium silicate and water — terra sigillata — to help seal the piece.
She polishes again with a soft cotton cloth and then cuts the base free of the vessel while still on the wheel. She then fires the piece the first time at 1,830
degrees F, retaining the fine clay’s earthy coarseness, the consistency of fine sandpaper.
By contrast, most pottery is fired at 2,000 degrees F or more.
Then Okula breaks the vessel — very carefully, vertically and horizontally so it falls to pieces in clean lines.
Okula tapes the pieces back together on the inside and then sketches front and back on a pad, to create the pieces’ pattern. Then it’s more deconstruction. She
takes each piece and puts it into a clay container — a saggar — that allows her to control the amount of air getting to the piece during the firing. The amount of
oxygen in the firing controls the color generated in the firing. Okula lays everything from hay to copper to masking tape, to cornhusks, to cobalt, to iron oxide
and yellow ochre on the pieces. Each element leaves its own color behind. Hay, black. Copper, red or green if more air flows into the saggar. Blue for cobalt.
Fine sawdust turns black. Coarse sawdust creates variations of grays because it allows more air into the firing.
Finally it’s time to assemble the pieces into a final vessel according to her sketches, gluing them together with epoxy and creating a newly unified vessel that
threatens to explode at any moment from the tension Okula creates with her interrupted designs, almost as if Picasso had painted on a vessel.
The end vessel reflects something of life — order and chaos and trying to make sense and something new from life’s mistakes, accidents, the unforeseen and
the unpredictable.

2. 12/4/15, 10:45 AMIpswich potter makes it to break it - Gate House
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“The techniques that I use in my art combine the randomness of the breaking and the firing process with the careful and deliberate reassembly process,
bringing order and form back from the chaos,” Okula said. “The serendipitous results make every work a mixture of pleasant surprises as the final piece takes
form. It is the unpredictability, which continues to enthrall me as each piece is unique in ways I only have partial control over.”
In fact, when Okula lays down hay, copper wire or iron oxide over a broken piece of pottery, puts into a saggar and then into the kiln, she retains limited
control over the process. Ultimately, Okula trusts to the fire, to her planning and to chance.
“I accept mistakes,” Okula said. “And I work with then. I let the work speak. I don’t cover up the materials and I let the fire show. What in another context
would seem like an error or mistake, for me brings life and character to my work, a philosophy I was first exposed to in Japan.”
Okula, of course, stumbled onto the process be accident. She was preparing to attend a workshop and broke the top to a vessel in several pieces. There was no
time to fix the mess, so Okula took it along “to see what I could do.” She spent the next five years experimenting and mastering the breaking process.
“The end product is new and it goes together to make something beautiful,” Okula said.
If you goWhat: Irina Okula exhibition at CraftBoston HolidayWhen: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Dec. 11-12 and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Dec. 13. A preview party will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. Dec.
10.Where: Hynes Convention Center, 900 Boylston St., Boston.Price: General admission, $15; seniors, $13; students, $12; Society of Arts and Crafts members, $7.50; ages 12 and
younger, free. Tickets may be purchased at craftboston.org or at the door. Tickets are valid for re-admission during the entire weekend.Information: For information and tickets, visit
craftboston.org.Okula’s prices range from about $200 to $2,000.
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