Pegasus, ‘spring,’ the winged horse of Greek mythology, stamped his hoof -- and up welled the springs of the Muses’ Mount Helicon. Some early Greek poets portray Pegasus carrying the thunderbolts of Zeus, reflecting another root word source: ‘lightning.’From these stories and etymologies, comes our use of the word ‘pegasus’ today to speak of artistic inspiration.
For me, that means knowing that the Source of all creation places His creative springs within us that well up and overflow . . . and that He occasionally zaps us with a bolt of lightning, as well.
As I learned about raku firing -- the modern, Westernized version, that is -- I began experimenting with applying horsehair to burnished pots, bisque fired and then reheated to about 1100 degrees. I started scrounging for other items that would leave enough of a carbon trace design, and found that feathers worked well.
Horsehair, feathers -- Pegasus!
These three pots in my Pegasus series earned second place in the Student division of the Dunedin Fine Art Center's 2008 Summa and Magma: Student and Member Exhibition.
For a piece commissioned for a fly-fisherman friend, I used turkey feathers from my fly-tying days. But mostly I scan the ground for random feathers, fallen from some flying creature passing overhead.
Why shouldn't they be from an equine creature as easily as from an avian one?
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