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Bonita Cohn

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My art is born, expressed in clay. Timeless, subtle, useful and beautiful. In clay are my feelings; into the deep center I pull: it becomes a bowl.

To make pottery is to give form to what I love. Through my bare hands the body and soul meet; Spirit in a vessel, tried by kiln fire. A collaboration of the four elements: earth, air, fire, water.

As a child, I gave up Saturday morning cartoons to go to art class in Boston at the Museum School. I painted pictures of still-lifes, shapely vases with flowers. After class, I'd wait for my Dad to come get me, and had time to wander the place. I often visited the Japanese Garden, a beautiful, quiet place. In a case was a small brown pot with the mark of the potters hand pushed into the side. I was intrigued by this and stared at it for a long time. What a mystery this was, this pot appeared to be still wet and spinning. It was a Bizen pot. I was 10 years old.

Since that time, I have become a potter. I am making the classic shapes I loved. I am achieving that surface in the wood kilns I have been privileged to use to produce my pottery. Now, more than ever, this influence has channeled through me, as I actually live on the Pacific Rim, alive with plate tectonics and Asian art. I fire in wood burning kilns, inspired by the traditional processes of ancient kilns.

Educated in the East at Alfred University and UMass, Amherst, I came to San Francisco in 1976. I met Ruby O’Burke on New Year’s Day, and got a space at her Artists’ Workshop the very next day. I’ve been a resident artist, studio potter, and teacher at Ruby’s Clay Studio since that time. I left the studio for 2 years for graduate work at the San Francisco Art Institute, leading to a Masters in Fine Arts.

I have studied ceramic arts under: Richard Shaw, John Roloff, Val Cushing, Robert Turner, and Sandra Johnstone. I have also attended workshops by Paul Soldner, Patti Warashina, Warren Mackenzie, John Leach, Shiro Otani, Ken Ferguson, Randy Johnston, and Toshiko Takaezu.

I make stoneware pottery for daily use. My glazes are simple, elegant, red, green, bronze, black, some comprised of materials found locally, like wood ash and clay. Many of my tea bowls are made of naturally occurring California clay found near the site of an old gold mine near Nevada City, Malakoff Diggins.

In addition to firing my own work in the gas kilns at Ruby’s, I have been firing pots and photographing more than 28 woodfirings since 1985. I have participated in 11 wood firings at the Grass Valley noborigama, one of the largest climbing kilns outside Japan. I have fired in Nolan Babin’s anagama kiln at Concow, California. For two years, I was privileged to be part of the regular crew at Hiroshi Ogawa’s Hikarigama (Enlightened Kiln), an anagama with noborigama salt, at Elkton, Oregon. Since 1997, I have been firing at Richard Carter Studio's anagama and noborigama in Napa, California. These five day firings are held two or three times a year. making the work, simple and utilitarian though it may be, unique and rare.

When home in San Francisco, I teach "As The Wheel Turns" to adults at Ruby’s Clay Studio and the SF Jewish Community Center.

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