Raina Lee Platter • Permanent Collection

Raina Lee’s racetrack-shaped stoneware platter is hand built from a slab and glazed with multiple custom glazes of her own formulation. Lee’s intention with the glazing was to create a watery landscape, the feeling of an atmospheric seascape, or body of water giving way to land. With each platter in the edition, she allowed the glazes to flow naturally, so that a different terrain might emerge. Her trademark volcanic crater glazes meld with glassy finishes — a diversity of textures as haptically seductive as they are visually alluring. Lee’s ceramic works draw influence from ancient traditions and the Chinese antique reproductions from her childhood home. Often finished with what she considers unexpected, peculiar glazes, her work is at once scientifically rigorous and organic and experimental. At her studio in Mount Washington, Lee mixes her own glazes, testing dozens of different mixtures to gain fluency in how the lustrous colors, telluric textures, and imperfections arise from the process. Lee explains, “If you didn’t grow up with artists in your family or go to art school, you have to find your own way to make art happen. My parents tried whatever they could to dissuade me from the arts! They were immigrants from Taiwan who ran a franchise pizza restaurant, so I credit them with my art philosophy which is ‘immigrant punk DIY entrepreneurial.’”