About Janel Jacobson

How do I explain simply five decades of exploration and growth in my work?

Since moving to Sunrise, Minnesota in 1975 as a 24-year-old potter in love with making pottery for daily use, I have worked in stoneware, porcelain and wood. I established Sunrise Pottery in 1975 and worked in the house that was built in 1911 and later moved to the new, separate studio building in 1995. My pots were fired in a gas-reduction kiln in the metal pole building just out the front door.

During the first several years in Sunrise, I made functional wares mostly from stoneware clay. The continuum of change for my explorations in clay grew from the mid 1970's through 1995 as a compelling desire evolved to illustrate themes from the natural world around my home by carving porcelain clay.

In those early years each summer, for about ten years, I gave myself limited periods of time to explore. These “summer camps” were always a separate time, only focusing on growth and not making pottery for income. It started with two weeks of focusing on stoneware pots and tiles that eventually grew into two months being set aside for porcelain and carving exploration. In the mid to late 1980’s I stopped all stoneware work entirely to focus solely on carving porcelain, and brought that new work to national level shows.

In those learning times I drew, carved or added sculptural relief on pots and tiles. I pursued rendering images first as surface drawings in stoneware clay with knife, slip and glaze, and shallow sculptural relief with subjects that depicted what inspired me from around my rural home.

Further broadening of detailed illustration grew into shallow relief carving using porcelain, to be enhanced with celadon glazes. When some subjects began to emerge from the shallow carved surfaces, they did not seem to fit the rest of the composition. At that point I separated two distinct styles in my work in porcelain: the shallow-reliefs, and small sculptural 3-D porcelain pieces, working in one mode or another, on one piece at a time until the small sculptural work became a strong passion-driven pursuit.

In the summer of 1995 wood became the material of choice for carving because it offered more to the development of each small sculpture. I focused on carving very detailed, small, sculptural wood pieces for the next two decades. Those years were interspersed with enjoyable brief episodes of making pottery with my husband Will Swanson for sale through our studio showroom, and for the Saint Croix Valley Pottery Tour, while keeping alive the love of making pots until I returned to full-time pottery making in 2016.

Now, the joy of using pots every day goes hand in hand with loving to make useful pots for others to incorporate into their daily lives. My current work uses porcelain clay to make wares such as drinking vessels, bowls, plates, covered containers, and an assortment of things that can be found in kitchens for food preparation.

My work currently explores celadon and carbon trapping glazes, using both our studio’s carbon trap recipe and Malcolm Davis’ Shino. The pots I make may be gently reshaped, textured and may have stamped or stenciled imagery applied. I am beginning to explore carved porcelain designs on a limited number of pieces. The clay and glaze are different, so these are exploratory to see what direction the new materials encourage.

I have maintained an archival web site janeljacobson.com for my earlier work in carved porcelain from around 1988 to 1995, and in carved wood from 1995 through the end of 2015. Both porcelain and wood pieces that are available for purchase may be found these web pages:

- Carved Porcelain 1985-1995
- Small Sculptural Wood 1995-2015
- Resumé PDF