Black+Pot

Date: 1994
 * [[image:https://s3.amazonaws.com/saam.media/files/styles/x_large/s3/images/1996/1996.98.2_3a.jpg?itok=gHi-t9Gc width="235" height="300" link="@https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/black-pot-35404"]] || Title: **Black Pot**

Artist: **David Ellsworth** Born: Iowa City, Iowa 1944

Medium: turned, burned, and burnished white ash Dimensions: 14 1/8 x 13 1/2 in. (35.9 x 34.3 cm) diam. Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of Jane and Arthur K. Mason on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Renwick Gallery

Accession: 1996.98.2 || David Ellsworth developed a series of bent turning tools that allowed him to work from a very small opening. He produces huge vessels with walls as thin as 1/16 of an inch that are incredibly light and fragile. The narrow opening prevents him from seeing inside while turning, so Ellsworth uses only the sound of his tools to determine how much he has gouged from inside the form.
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"It has been my desire to push the technique of lathe turning beyond its traditional limits, to elevate the concepts of the wooden 'bowl' to that of the wooden 'vessel.'" David Ellsworth, 1999
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David Ellsworth received his MFA from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1973. Eight years earlier, he had studied architecture for a year at Washington University, St. Louis. His work is in the permanent collection of the American Craft Museum, the Philadelphia Art Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. His bowls have been featured at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta and the Musée des Arts Decoratif in Paris. Ellsworth has lectured widely, and received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Pennsylvania Council for the Arts. He is a lifetime member of the American Association of Woodturners.
 * Biographical Information: **

Artist Biography SAAM Collections Page
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