Right Whale Vessels with lid

Tim Christensen

Right Whale Sgrafitto porcelain ceramic jar with lid by Tim Christensen Environmental Art Midcoast Maine Artisan Store The Good Supply Pemaquid Made in USA
  • Right Whale Sgrafitto porcelain ceramic jar with lid by Tim Christensen Environmental Art Midcoast Maine Artisan Store The Good Supply Pemaquid Made in USA
  • Right Whale Sgrafitto porcelain ceramic jar with lid by Tim Christensen Environmental Art Midcoast Maine Artisan Store The Good Supply Pemaquid Made in USA
  • $825.00

If you didn’t already know, we’re sincere whale fans. The gentle giants of the sea remind us of community, peace, perseverance, and to always stay salty. This hearty pod swims across the surface of a rounded jar topped with a flared lid. In the textured stripes reminiscent of sunbeams through water, we can imagine the plankton and krill that filters through their baleen. Their distinctive white keratin patches are playful polka dots against the black their bodies. Keep your eyes to the horizon for a breach.

Right Whales can be found in the waters of Maine though their numbers are rapidly falling. These beauties that one friend referred to as "wildebeests of the sea" are one of the most endangered whale species in the world due to a history of whaling along with the fishing industry and our shared dependence on international industrial shipping. We can do our part in their survival by supporting responsible commercial fishing practices, keeping beaches and waters clean, and keeping our supply chains as local as possible.

- Measures 5” x 7.5”
- Salt-fired porcelain
- Sgraffito
- Wash by hand

Ceramic artist Tim Christensen divides his time between Portland and Downeast Maine. At his off-grid studio Tim finds inspiration for his porcelain pieces. Schools of herring, flocks of chattering songbirds, and all matter of sea life are skillfully carved on the surfaces of his hand-thrown and constructed forms.

Tim began working in clay in 1999, and he has been etching his black and white pieces since 2004. Using the centuries-old decorative technique of Sgraffito, Tim carves intricate worlds teeming with life and energy. Firing much of his work at Watershed Center for Ceramic Art in Newcastle, Maine, Tim finds that the collaborative Midcoast institution's salt and wood-fire kilns add variety and allow for the possibility of happy accidents, which are common in the ceramic world and offer welcome play on the artist's meticulous carvings.

Tim has shown his work around the world and recently completed his first book. Written with co-author Carri Lange, “Reflect, Adapt, and Persevere” he tells of his travels and thoughts on environmental philosophy.

From the Artist:

My work is about the ever-changing web of relationships that surround us. Individuals make contact to create relationships, relationships collide to create systems. These systems change over time in response to the other systems around them. I envision my world as an infinite collection of active counterparts, individuals symbiotically wriggling and moving and jostling for space and resources.

In this sea of systems, of relationships, I sit and try to untangle it, sit and try to communicate what I see changing, being created, or disappearing into the past.

This is why I work in our most durable medium, porcelain, and in our longest unbroken historical record, pottery. My work, functional in the information I convey, will be understandable to anyone with an eyeball and the ability to think abstractly.

My goal is to make work which still speaks clearly in 10,000 years, and more importantly, to convey the complexity and richness of the world in which I am most fortunate to live.

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