A wonderful gem from a very important and highly collected American ceramic artist. A fine addition to anyone's collection of American fine art vases. Born: Buffalo, NY, United States.
Ceramicist Gail McCarthy was an associate professor of fine arts at Niagara County Community College whose work has been exhibited and collected internationally for decades. About her lustered works, McCarthy stated: My ceramics are a contemporary adaptation of Seljuk and Persian techniques, almost lost to the modern world. I try to create rich iridescent surfaces that reflect light, depth, movement, and metal flashings.
To do this I use precious metals in my glazes, such as silver nitrate, gold and platinum chloride, and I fire my vessels and tiles many times, always adding additional layers of metals. McCarthy distinguished herself by producing sumptuous, lustered vessels and wall-hung tile murals.
Her patient process requires multiple kiln firings to produce iridescent, metallic luster finishes whose colors radiate with prismatic complexity. Buffalo native McCarthy was a working cellist as an undergraduate at Seton Hill College in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, where she gravitated toward the ceramics studio where she was introduced to clay. Then-while living in Washington, D.
McCarthy pursued an MFA in sculpture at the University at Buffalo in 1980 and did additional graduate work in the same university's School of Architecture. She also took several workshops and developed a friendship with artist, craftsperson, and writer Beatrice Wood.
Since the 1980s, her work has been exhibited throughout the U.