Dorri Ellis - Ceramics

Dorri Ellis has worked in all facets of ceramics, wheel and hand-building her pieces, using highand low fires. She has turned her attention exclusively to raku, drawn to its immediacy "that you can't get any other way". She uses a glaze to bring out the metal and give a glitter and glitz to the finished product, finding the glaze fire fast and exciting. Her raku masks are finished off by being mounted on canvas, with backgrounds often subtely painted or embellished with feathers or bits of bone to balance the space. Her newest pieces are fish, which seemed a natural for her medium because of their irridescence. She studied ceramics with Glenn Nelson at the University of Iowa and has taught adult programs for eighteen years.