Michael Gustavson "Tower 19" Raku Ceramic, Abstract Curved Tower Sculpture in Teal and Red, Carmel California Art, Original 11 X 20 Inches, 2025

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This tower leans into a gentle S-curve, narrowing at the waist and swelling toward a crooked top. The front is … Read more This tower leans into a gentle S-curve, narrowing at the waist and swelling toward a crooked top. The front is a mosaic of red, teal, navy, black and white, with a dotted disc in the upper corner and a bold black-and-white wedge running down the middle. The rear is a smooth, deep blue, and the sides carry a rough, dark purple glaze that looks almost mineral. A bright aqua base slab anchors the form. Gustavson has spent four decades treating clay as a painter treats canvas, and here the shifting profile lets each color shape change character as you walk around it. The silhouette reads as a figure, standing with some attitude.

The curved profile gives a shelf, sideboard or entry table a lively focal point without taking much room. Aqua and navy relate to blue-gray walls, linen and pale oak, and the red adds warmth beside terracotta or leather. Set it against a plain wall so the outline stays clear, or place it between low objects so its height has room.

Raku-fired glazed ceramic, 11 x 20 x 6 in (27.9 x 50.8 x 15.2 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