About the Art
THE BREATHTAKING CROSSES AND VESSELS OF RICHARD TUPPER HAWLEY IMPART SPIRITUALLY INSPIRED MESSAGES OF HOPE.
Over the past thirty years Richard and Tupper Hawley have quietly developed a widespread reputation for their spiritually inspired crosses and Raku vessels. Raku is a ceramic firring technique that produces a spectrum of metallic colors dazzling to the eye. The metal mosaic crosses are labor-intensive fusions of swirling silver and copper wire, hand-painted liquid gold on gleaming copper panels, inlaid with semi-precious stones and dichroic glass. These ornate ‘mosaics’ are complete when placed on carved wood backgrounds created by woodworker Rob Hughes.
The Japanese word Raku means ‘joy, simple beauty,’ This accelerated firing method, and subsequent post reduction, involves removing the superheated cross or vessel from a kiln and burying it under ground in a nest of combustible material. When the work is unearthed it has been transformed by heat and atmospheric elements into a unique piece of art.
“The stress the work undergoes and the resulting spontaneous beauty is much like death, burial and resurrection,” Richard explains. “The pottery I call ‘chosen vessels,’ a metaphor for our spiritual potential. We are all vessels made of clay—spiritual containers to be filled up and poured out.
“The crosses we create are an expression of our gifts, combined not to draw attention to ourselves so much as to focus on the giver of all good gifts and to whom all honor and glory are due.” By incorporating sacred geometry and symbolism into these stirring designs, the crosses become what the Hawley’s refer to as “sacred images for the window of the soul,” and add that the Raku vessels “speak of God’s promise of healing and salvation.”