SOLD: Black Desert Tortoise: Nicolas Ortiz

Nicolas Ortiz is best known for his figurative ceramics. This life-size desert tortoise is just one of his wonderful figures. This is an example of how some ceramics can be made to appear black with oxygen firing, when actually they have been treated with graphite; by rubbing the surface of the clay with commercial graphite, a ceramic piece is turned black from the graphite rather than the carbon during an oxygen-reduction firing. The process of using graphite instead of oxygen-reduction firing was discovered by Nicolas’ brother, Macario Ortiz, some years ago when he noticed that his penciled signature turned glossy black after being fired.