Mark Tyson with some of the tea bowls he will be selling at the arts center sale this year. Photo: Doris Gonzales — Mark Tyson with some of the tea bowls he will be selling at the arts center sale this year. *Photo: Doris Gonzales*

“Clay nowadays is just so clean,” Mark Tyson says. The ceramicist doesn’t intend this as a compliment. “It’s too homogeneous,” he explains. “It’s boring.”

To make the clay more interesting, Tyson, who teaches ceramics at the Community Arts Center in Wallingford, works ground-up stone, sand, and iron from blacksmith scale and old hand warmers into the clay. “Irregularities make the clay surface more interesting,” he says.

Tyson is one of over 40 vendors who will be participating in this year’s annual Community Arts Center and Potters Guild Handcrafted Holiday Sale, running from December 4 through 12. The number of vendors is reduced this year as a COVID-19 safety precaution, says Executive Director Paul Downie. But shoppers who preregister for 1-hour slots will still be able to buy locally crafted jewelry, home decor, clothing, and wooden items. And, of course, ceramic art.

A happier difference this year: much of the ceramic art Mark Tyson is offering was fired at the center’s new wood-burning kiln. Tyson, who oversaw the kiln project, is pleased with the result. In the past, he could not choose where to place his pieces in a kiln, or help decide how to conduct a firing. Now, “I can fire things more often and produce a body of work that is truly mine.”

A wood-fired kiln — as opposed to gas or electric — requires a lot of work. Wood must be acquired, chopped, stacked, then fed constantly into the kiln for the duration of a 24- to 48-hour firing.

It’s worth it, though, Tyson says. As the wood burns, it releases minerals that stick to the pots and melt, becoming a glaze that shows off — rather than conceals — the clay’s intrinsic beauty.

Different kinds of wood yield different colors of glaze. “Pine gives you a nice green,” Tyson reports. Oak makes a golden yellow, while walnut yields shades of purple. With the new kiln, “we know exactly what we’re burning. That makes a huge difference.”

An Education in Clay

This will be the first holiday show for Wallingford native Anna Masciantonio, a 2010 Strath Haven High School graduate. Masciantonio took her first ceramics class at the Community Arts Center when she was 15, with long-time teacher Carol Seymour of Swarthmore, whose works also feature in the show. Masciantonio studied ceramics at Virginia Commonwealth University, then moved back to the Wallingford area and returned to the arts center, helping to build the new kiln last summer.

The project gave her a new understanding of firing. Fire runs through a kiln the way water courses through a creek bed, she explains. Constructing the kiln brick by brick made those pathways vivid.

Masciantonio is drawn to the communal aspect of weekend-long wood firings, where stokers stay up all night by the fire. Sometimes you don’t know the other people you’re working with, she notes, but “you just have to work together.”

Her love of the communal is reflected in her tableware ceramics. “I love to eat,” she says. “I come from a big Italian family, so I’m inspired by the things I would want to see on my own table.” Lately she has been making olive oil bottles and big pasta platters. She also makes small dishes that she stacks in the kiln, where the flames ornament them with interesting patterns as fire runs through the stack.

In addition to developing her own craft, Masciantonio looks for ways to support other aspiring potters. Energized by last summer’s Black Lives Matter demonstrations, she organized a fundraiser for Crafting the Future, a non-profit organization that connects artists of color with opportunities to advance their work. Potters Guild members donated pieces, and Masciantonio sold them online to raise funds. When the pandemic ends, she hopes the arts center will become more involved with Crafting the Future.

New Life for Discards

Gary Rothera will sell his Christmas balls at this year’s Community Arts Center holiday sale. Photo: Bridget Rothera — Gary Rothera will sell his Christmas balls at this year’s Community Arts Center holiday sale. *Photo: Bridget Rothera*

Gary Rothera creates art out of found objects. “I made my own rule that I don’t want to buy things,” he says. “It has to be something discarded or trashed.” One room in his house is just for storing objects he finds in thrift stores or that people give him: dolls, organ pipes, musical instruments, scarves, hats, a “Lost in Space” lunchbox.

For the arts center sale, he’s making a lot of gourd snowmen — “Tim Burton-style mixed with a bit of steampunk,” he says. The eyes come from old stuffed animals, the noses are dried pumpkin stems (collected by the hundred at Linvilla Orchards after Thanksgiving), while the arms are red and green wire from old Christmas lights.

Rothera also crafts figurines from plaster of paris and old dolls. He specializes in whimsical ornaments upcycled from traditional Christmas balls. He melts the balls with a micro torch and inserts eyes, tongues, and noses to create faces. “They’re the happiest little balls,” he says. Also for sale this year will be snowmen and birdhouses made of pipe organs, and what he calls “naughty-not-nice elves” made from recycled plush toys.

A retired middle-school art teacher, Rothera used to volunteer on the post-prom committees at his children’s high school, transforming the building into Diagon Alley from the Harry Potter world or scenes from Alice in Wonderland.” The art room at his Drexel Hill middle school was “famous for being packed with all kinds of cool stuff,” he recalls. Once, a student asked why they always made creepy things in class.

“It’s called surrealism!” Rothera replied.

The Hand-Crafted Holiday Sale runs from December 4 to 12 at the Community Arts Center, 414 Plush Mill Road, Wallingford. To register for your 1-hour shopping slot(s): swat.ink/holiday-sale-sign-up.