Carol Marians
Potter
To our regret, the press of the Summer Season preempts our series of cultural events. It therefore gives us special pleasure to still be able to host Carol Marian's second annual pottery show at the Sou'wester this week-end. Marians is certainly not your typical potter. Indeed she may be the sole potter ever to have traveled the road least traveled. When other potters could not explain to her how to recreate the glazes she most admired, she went back to school - not to earn an MFA in a pottery program, but to earn a Ph.D. in Materials Science at MIT.
Her fascination with ceramics infected her work as professor of mathematics as well. She was one of the earliest potters to use computers in glaze computations, and taking advantage of her understanding of matrices and linear equations she wrote a computer program for finding new glazes that has still not been equaled.
Once again, her fascination with ceramics led her back to MIT to earn a second PhD! Her original impulse to study the science underlying classic Chinese glazes vied with her passion for mathematics. To earn her second doctorate she wrote her dissertation on "A Language for the Study of Silica Networks" bringing mathematics to bear on a study of silica glass.
For a time after that pottery took a back seat to other professional activities, most recently developing medical software used in studying electrocardiograms and heart sounds. But stoked by a summer workshop with Tom Coleman at Sierra Nevada College, her passion for pottery resurfaced.
As Carol formulates all of her own glazes this has led to a long series of experiments to find glazes that best complement her own style. This has also meant more work for her developing variations on the computerized glaze program that she first wrote more than 15 years ago.
In his article on this remarkable lady in whom science and craft are joint tenants, John Foyston, editor of the Living section in the Oregonian, marveled at her scientific exactitude. He wrote of the Acculab 2400 electronic lab scale, "on which she weighs the several constituents of a glaze and frets about the accuracy of one gram (about one-28th of an ounce) in a final weight of 2,000 grams."
Because she makes all her own glazes, Carol can be sure that no dangerous materials such as lead and cadmium are part of the glaze as well as controlling other elements which may be dangerous in high concentration.
Carol's pottery is primarily functional. She is happiest when she sees her bowls and plates being used in the kitchen and dining room, her vases holding flowers. The ware is all stoneware, thrown on a potters wheel, glazed with food and microwave safe glazes, and fired to cone 6 (about 2200 degrees Fahrenheit.)
We are delighted that Carol who, with her husband Bob is about to move her studio and home to the Dalles, has once again consented to exhibit her works at the Sou'wester. Last year guests remarked, not only how much they admired her work, but also how reasonably priced they were compared to prices in Seattle and Portland galleries. Since she is in the process of moving her studio to the Dalles, guests will once again be the beneficiaries of prices below market value. We ourselves use her bowls and tableware daily, and, over the year, Miriam and I find they add an increasing pleasure to our dining. We love it when arts and crafts become part of and uplift our daily lives.
Everyone is invited to stop by the Sou'wester porch, sip a complimentary cup of coffee, munch on a cookie, meet Carol, and view the potter's display.