Northcoast Artists Gallery is pleased to present the work of member artist Satoko Barash. The show will feature Satoko’s soda fired porcelain and stoneware. She enjoys making both utilitarian and artistic ceramics, while exploring the infinite variety of texture and colors attainable through the process of soda firing. Satoko is drawn to functional pottery because of it’s intimacy with it’s user. She likes to emphasize the handmade quality and tactile sense of clay in her work that juxtapose today‘s machine made, mass-produced goods commonly acquired in this culture. Satoko comes from an artistic family: Her mother teaches Japanese flower arrangement in Japan, and her father is a wood block printer.

Satoko took ceramics classes at Mendocino College from 2004-2011. She participated in wood firing and kiln building with Doug Browe, and in 2008, with the help of mentors and friends, she built a propane fueled soda kiln at her house. From Satoko,”I wheel throw and alter porcelain in my studio.  After a bisque firing, glaze is applied to the interior of the pots. When I spray soda ash into the kiln at 2200 degrees during a glaze firing, soda vapor travels through the kiln and chemically interacts with clay then creates patterns and colors on the exterior surface of each piece.” Satoko, her husband, and seventeen-year-old daughter share a home in Ukiah.

Please join Satoko and other member artists for a First Friday Opening Reception on September 7, from 5 to 8 pm. Refreshments will be served. Northcoast Artists Gallery is open daily from 11am – 5pm.