From the website announcement:

Karl Beamer’s exhibition, entitled “Shaping Life: Tradition and Influence,” features his wood-fired ceramic pottery, most of which is heavily influenced by an ancient Japanese technique. Shortly after completing his master of fine arts degree at Penn State in 1972, Beamer began teaching sculpture and ceramics at Bloomsburg University. Like many contemporary ceramicists, he used a gas kiln to fire his pottery. His approach changed, however, after a visit to Japan in 1991. He met Shiho Kanzaki, a ceramic artist and Buddhist priest who is internationally known for reviving an ancient, natural firing technique once practiced in the Japanese ceramic center of Shigaraki.

In this approach, pottery is fired in a wood-burning or anagama kiln, which produces surface effects, such as color, through natural ash deposits rather than through the application of glaze directly to the clay. Without Kanzaki’s revival of the technique, Beamer noted, the no-glaze tradition could have been lost. Beamer and Kanzaki ultimately developed a working friendship that led to the construction of an anagama kiln at Beamer’s home near Bloomsburg. Beamer is one of only a handful of contemporary artists working in the Shigaraki manner.

For more information on Karl Beamer, including Dick Lehman’s article in the November 2000 issue of Ceramics Monthly and additional images, click here.