JOHN DONOVAN

Tenure Ceramics lead designer/potter John Patton Donovan, MFA, has long been recognized for his work in fine art ceramic sculpture. Represented by LeMieux Galleries in New Orleans and Zeitgeist Art Gallery in Nashville, his work has been exhibited at the Third World Ceramic Biennale in Icheon, South Korea; the Tennessee Arts Commission, the Wiregrass Museum of Art, and the Huntsville Museum of Art. In 2011 John received the Individual Artist Fellowship in Craft Media from the Tennessee Arts Commission.

In 2007 he began working with Tandy Wilson of City House Restaurant to create a custom line of commercial-grade ceramic tableware. As word-of-mouth spread, he began accepting additional commercial and residential commissions, collaborating with clients to create one-of-a-kind signature pieces for their businesses and homes. In 2015, Tenure Ceramics was officially launched in Nashville, Tennessee.

WHY WHEEL-THROWN WORKS

On a particle level, clay starts out disorganized; the platelets are chaotically arranged until the potter compresses and organizes the clay by wedging and further by wheel-throwing. On the wheel, the arrangement in the clay begun in wedging is further developed, and the clay platelets are compressed and laminated together, resulting in a spiral platelet structure that is tight and organized .

Ceramic is a thermodynamic material, platelets move when exposed to extreme heat (and then again when they cool). Since the particle structure of wheel-thrown work is organized and laminated, a finished piece of pottery generally returns to that structure once it cools. Clay platelets in work not made on the wheel aren’t as well organized, and a finished piece of pottery may shift slightly every time it heats and cools, gradually losing structural integrity.

This isn’t generally an issue for residential-use ceramics, but restaurants often use high temp dishwashers to sanitize their tableware. This heat combined with the heavy use pottery gets in a restaurant environment, if it’s not wheel thrown it can quickly loose density and begin to break. Though it requires more time, effort and expertise to make, wheel-thrown tableware is more durable and needs to be replaced less often.