My Love of Porcelain

I work in porcelain because it feels wonderful when I'm throwing--creamy and soft. Since it hasn't any iron in it, porcelain is the perfect clay for my interest in glazes. I'm able to get a wide variety of visual and tactile effects. I love color, both clear and bright and the more subtle complex ones. These too work extremely well on the porcelain.

My early porcelain pieces were small pods and petal bowls, wheel thrown and altered. They were very sculptural.

Over a period of time I started to get more involved with the surfaces of the forms and began carving the thrown pieces. I enjoyed the carving so much that I have found myself spending more and more time carving.

I love the feeling of carving porcelain; the cutting and scraping away, but, everything starts with the three dimensional form. Therefore, the carved designs tend to be abstract repeat patterns that work with the shape of the pot rather than representational scenes that use the surface as a canvas. I work in a wide range of sizes from miniatures on up.

In order to continue my lifelong fascination with glaze development, I also do pieces that are not carved in order to leave me free to play with glazes and surface textures that would be inappropriate for carved work. The pieces are fired to at least 2300 degrees Fahrenheit. I use both gas and electric kilns.

Marsha Silverman was born in New York City in 1943. She received her training at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston where majored in ceramics. She was awarded the Boit Prize and the Clarissa Bartlett Traveling Scholarship. She set up her first studio in Rexford, New York, in 1972.

After marrying in 1975, she moved her studio to Anchorage, Kentucky, where she worked until 1981. Her studio is now located in Miami, Florida, where she has lived and worked since 1981.