Michael Gustavson "Tower 14" Raku Ceramic, Abstract Geometric Tower Sculpture in Orange and Teal, Bay Area California Art, Statement Artwork, 2025

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A slender, faintly tapering column rises from a square teal base, its faces painted in flat planes of orange, saffron, … Read more A slender, faintly tapering column rises from a square teal base, its faces painted in flat planes of orange, saffron, scarlet and navy. A green disc sits near the shoulder and a slate-blue one near the foot, each ringed with a fine pale line, and a patch of white crackle cools the saturated color. The glaze is glossy and tightly drawn, closer to a small abstract painting than to a vase. Gustavson calls himself a painter-sculptor and treats the clay form as a canvas, so each side reads as its own composition. Turn it and the warm face gives way to deeper blues and greens, with a sharp slanted top finishing the profile.

Tall and narrow, it fits where floor space is scarce: a bookshelf end, a console beside a window, a mantel or the corner of a desk. The warm face glows against white or pale gray walls, while the blue side picks up navy upholstery, walnut and brass. It also works as a small vertical accent among books and low bowls.

Raku-fired glazed ceramic, 9 x 22.5 x 5.5 in (22.9 x 57.1 x 14.0 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