Hand built ceramic belted kingfisher sculpture, blue-grey underglaze with white breast band and rust flank, perched on a dark textured post.
That crest is doing the identifying. Belted kingfishers raise it the second they're alert, which is most of the time, that ragged blue crown is a bird that never fully relaxes. This one's caught mid-raise, spikes loose and uneven the way they actually sit, not combed into anything tidy.
The rust patch across the belly is the other tell. Only the female carries that band, one of the rare cases in North American birds where she's the more marked of the pair. So this is a female, specifically, watching from a perch the way they do over open water, bill level, ready to drop.
Built in stoneware, the crest worked as individual pulled points rather than a single mass. Underglaze in slate blue through the back and crown, white through the collar and breast, a warm rust wash left for the flank. Bill left dark and unglazed. Set on a rough black post, more snag than branch, glazed only enough to hold a sheen against the matte bird.
Stoneware, underglaze, glaze. 25 x 27 x 8 cm. 2026. Commissions welcome.
