If you've ever seen one of Michael T Moseley's works in person, then you were undoubtedly amazed and intrigued by the complexity, color, and multi-dimensional facets of his ceramic sculpture.  They are feasts for the eyes and seem to draw you back time and time again to experience something you didn't capture the first time.  We asked him to share with us the amount of work that goes into creating such intriquite artwork, and we were grateful that he shared with us the process.  Here is a summary of his answer:

The Making of Contemporary Ceramic Sculpture

by Michael T Moseley

Most of my recent shapes (both book and 3d) have a photographically generated ceramic decal incorporated onto the shapes.

First, a relief image is constructed with a white low-fire earthenware clay body that is then fired. The ground color is achieved by the application of ceramic slips that have commercial stains in them. The relief then goes through multiple firings at different cones and temperatures to finish the glaze, metal, and luster.

After the relief goes through the firing processes it is photographed transfered into a digital file and sent out to be made into a ceramic decal.  This ceramic decal I will later fire onto ceramic sculptures that were previously constructed.  The process for firing the ceramic sculptures are similar to the above, except that there is an additional firing that I do to incorporate the ceramic decal transfer image. This firing takes place between the glaze firing and the metal firing.

Michael T. Moseley