Hand built ceramic curlew sculpture, black textured body with red bill, clear glaze over oxide and underglaze.
That red is doing all the talking. A real curlew's bill is bone and dark horn, built to probe deep into mud for whatever's hiding below. This one keeps the shape and the purpose exactly right, the long downward curve, the weight forward on the neck, and invents the colour entirely. Nothing in the field guide explains this bird. Nothing needs to.
Body worked rough, almost scorched-looking, the surface pulled and torn rather than smoothed. The bill alone sits glassy against it, a hard bright line the eye goes to first and doesn't leave. Low and grounded rather than standing tall, the whole form settled the way a bird gets when it's not going anywhere soon.
Built in stoneware, the body layered in oxide and underglaze under a heavy textured surface, left otherwise matte. The bill alone finished in clear glaze over red, so it catches light the body doesn't. No base, no perch. The bird sits directly on whatever it's set on.
Stoneware, oxide, underglaze, clear glaze. 17 x 32 x 9.5 cm. Winged Figures series. 2026. Commissions welcome.
