Crisswell’s professional clay career has spanned 37 years. She has exhibited at the Kentuck Festival for 36 years and Bluff Park Art Show for over 30 years. Presently her clay art may be purchased year-round at Blue Phrog Gallery in Montevallo.

Crisswell’s wheel-thrown clay artworks are graceful forms with artistic surface considerations–most involving utility into art. Her tripled coated glazes give a rich, cobalt blue color, patterned with crystalline bursts and textures derived from the interaction of several glaze components, including rutile and gerstley borate. Crisswell has developed a paper-relief and porcelain slip design technique–these design surfaces can be very geometrical or loosely ornate, with either white or black slip applications. Another approach is a method of porcelain slip decoration by simply drawing into it free hand with a pencil to create her ever-popular “swimming fish” motif. Sculptural applications are also incorporated in her “corsage” pieces, “Clayfolk” jars and figure sculptures.

Process:

• sculpted stoneware & mid-range porcelain
• functional/wheel thrown stoneware
• clay pieces fired to cone 6/oxidation firing (~2300 F)
• hand mixed glazes from crushed stone & chemicals

Techniques:

• paper relief design on surfaces using airbrushed porcelain slips
• sculpted and folded clay designs
• slab work with impressed materials
• hand drawn pencil work into clay slips
• layered glaze application