Richard Gruchalla & Carrin Rosetti
Duluth, MN

“It’s like spinning straw into gold. It’s magic.”

For more than 30 years Richard has made his living as a potter. During the last five years Richard has been joined in the studio by his wife Carrin, collaborating on new concepts and ideas as they work side by side.“ There is something so rewarding about creating a beautiful object out of a form of lump of mud. It’s elemental – earth, air, fire and water. The combining of these things with your own hands, skills, and imagination, and turning nothing into something is alchemy.”
Richard and Carrin work in the vessel form. That is, the objects they make have the form of utensils for holding something – a vase, a basket, a pot, etc. They work in clay and put the vessels through a firing process known as Raku, Raku is a process by which certain glaze finishes, textures, and looks are achieved. Raku is a very drastic and dramatic process. The vessel is put through rapid extremes of temperature, and taken from an atmosphere rich in oxygen to one dense with carbon and back again. The process is so severe that it would cause most ceramic pieces to shatter: and even though the clay they use is formulated to withstand the extremes of the Raku firing, many of their creations are lost to thermal shock. The pieces that make it through the firing intact have a distinctive look: the clay is blackened, the glazes are crackled, and the atmospheres affect the colorants in the glazes. The mark of the fire is on the piece.

Richard comes to Raku from a foundation in functional pottery. After receiving his degree from Moorhead State University in 1972, Richard spent 12 years producing utilitarian stoneware and porcelain before turning his full attention to decorative pottery. He is rooted in tradition and has great respect and admiration for traditional forms and processes. Carrin comes to the clay studio with a background in fibers (in which she still works) and art history.  She is a 1990 BFA graduate from the University of Minnesota, Duluth, and has spent the last seven years as a studio artist. Both artists are past recipients of McKnight Fellowship Awards granted through the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council of Minnesota. “It’s the making of the piece and the spontaneity of the Raku firing that is so appealing .Our creative voice speak through the materials we have chosen to use, but the Raku process retains its editorial power over our expression. We think it’s a working arrangement”

 Artist Statement:
We make objects that sometimes spark a sense of remembrance.  This is often subtle.  There are things hidden in the memory and not easily brought into focus.  Where do ideas come from?…  We look.  We enjoy the world we see. We gather things around ourselves that bring us pleasure – maybe they remind us of a shared event, or a person we have gotten to know.  Perhaps somewhere we over heard someone say, “I really like that color!” and now we see that color everywhere. 

Objects.  Events.  People.  The visual lift of a graceful curve.  The repetitive texture of beaten copper.  The cloudy translucence of polished jade.  Ancient Chinese cast bronze?  Mideastern alabaster?  American Arts and Crafts? 

We make objects that sometimes come from a spark of remembrance. 

We work in clay.  We call the process “American Raku”.  Sometimes we add other materials to the finished pieces – wire, wooden pegs, metallic leaf, stone, string, etc. 

for Richard Gruchalla & Carrin Rosetti

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