Michael Gustavson "Crowing at the Moon" Raku Ceramic, Large Abstract Totem Sculpture With Crow in Teal, Carmel California Art, 2025

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A glossy black crow perches on the top of a tall, stacked form, its beak lifted as if calling. Below … Read more A glossy black crow perches on the top of a tall, stacked form, its beak lifted as if calling. Below it, a stepped tower of teal, navy, orange, scarlet and yellow planes is cut with a half-round notch, a pale crackled disc with black branching lines, and a bright red moon. The piece stands on a round, stone-colored base. The mix of flat geometry and a small, realistic bird gives the sculpture a story. Gustavson has worked in ceramic for four decades, and his larger works have grown into vertical totems and outdoor sculptures, with color laid across them as if on a canvas. The shadow it casts adds a second drawing on the floor.

At six feet tall it stands comfortably in a foyer, a stairwell, a living room corner or a garden room with a wide view. The teal and orange pair with white plaster, limestone and dark wood, and the black crow keeps the color grounded. Give it plenty of space around the base, where the shadows can fall on a pale floor.

Raku-fired glazed ceramic, 15 x 74 x 16 in (38.1 x 188.0 x 40.6 cm).

Gustavson fires his work in raku, the traditional Japanese process, which he has adapted over decades into his own method. For his large pieces he does not lift them from the kiln into combustible material; instead they stay in the kiln while pine needles are introduced at lower temperatures to create the reduction atmosphere. Layered glazes, crackle, drips and fine drawn lines build luminous color, and he treats every form as a three-dimensional canvas.

Michael Gustavson is a ceramic artist based in Murphys, California, who has worked in clay for more than four decades. He earned his MFA from San Jose State University in 1980 and describes himself as a painter-sculptor, treating each form as a three-dimensional canvas and glaze as his paint. His work is held in private and public collections worldwide, including IBM, Kaiser Permanente, Seagate, Cranbrook Museum and Eastman Kodak.

Building on the traditional Japanese process of raku, he developed his own firing approach, leaving large pieces in the kiln and introducing pine needles at lower temperatures to create reduction. The method allows larger scale and unusually vivid color. His wheel-thrown, hand-stretched vessels suggest the figure in motion, his wall reliefs use fragmented slabs and negative space, and recent outdoor sculptures and benches carry his surfaces into tectonic forms, with nods to Miró, Kandinsky, Mondrian and Pollock. See less