Michael Rutkowsky

EDUCATION

1979 MFA University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina

WORK EXPERIENCE

1979— Studio potter-South Carolina and North Carolina

Michael Rutkowsky produces reduction fired functional stoneware pottery. He mixes clay and glazes using his own formulas and combines the materials with his personal techniques to create functional ceramics that include extruded, wheel thrown, and press molded.

At various times Rutkowsky employs decorative techniques including the application of celadon glaze, finger combed, wax resist, finger application, slip trailed and glaze trailed decoration, and the application of multiple layers of colored slip. Through the years he also produced both unglazed and glazed objects.

Early work was high-fired stoneware, fired at cone 10 in a sprung-arch wood burning kiln.  The work moved from slip trailing and celadon glazes to unglazed slip trailing on colored slips. In  1987 Rutkowsky moved to new quarters reassembled his kiln which was converted to a propane fired kiln firing to cone 10.  Decorative techniques moved to celadon glaze, glaze trailing on colored slips under celadons, and glaze trailing over celadons. In 1999 the final move to a new studio and the third rebuilding of the sprung-arch kiln now propane firing at cone 9. Rutkowsky reports, …”Employing both slip and glaze trailing on glazed and unglazed pots combining colored slips with celadons and applying slips and glazes with my fingers to achieve multiple layers of varying colors.”