Jason Gaddy:
Innovative artist, visionary musician, detail-minded craftsman.
Jason grew up in that part of Colorado that connects the mountains to the desert. His visual art influences range from Southwestern native pottery to album cover art, though nature is his largest influence and inspiration. He spent time in the summers hiking and rafting the canyons, and winters skiing the high country. The sandstone formations of the Western Colorado desert, ripples in the sand, tracks made by insects, patterns found in snake scales, oil sheen on water, decomposing plant material - these things have always given him a desire to create.
His music has been inspired by natural elements as well - the call of a canyon wren, the sizzle of wind through high tension wires, the pounding sound of surf. All kinds of traditional music have been major influences as well - from classical to psychedelic to world folk music to drum circles around campfires.
He began playing trumpet in grade school and has continued through the present. In the 1980's he began learning techniques on the hand drum and the open holed flute, and by the early 1990's he was learning to play the didjeridu. From 1998 - 2000 he performed and recorded with an alternative band called Sly Baba, playing trumpet, concert flute, didgeridoo, the Indian sanai, and various percussion instruments. He has recently recorded trumpet and didgeridoo parts professionally for a local jazz musician. He has combined his love for the trumpet and other lip buzzing instruments with his skill and craftsmanship in ceramics.

Jason at the wood fired kiln at Delphinia
His new array of work includes many whimsical and musically functional bugles and didjeridus. Some of his pieces are included in a book entitled From Mud to Music, which will be published by the American Ceramic Society next year.
Jason was fortunate to be encouraged from a very young age in ceramics; skill with clay came naturally. When he was five he formed a giraffe that still sits in his grandparents house. His father taught pottery to elementary school students. He remembers his father taking him to the elementary school in the evenings to turn up the kiln and show him glass melting into glaze. In high school he was awarded "Best of Show" for a figurative ceramic piece he did. In his first two years at a Mesa State College in Colorado he studied under an accomplished professional potter, Lavern Mosher. Mosher taught by example, throwing large pieces with great skill, speed and accuracy. Mosher's assistant, Susan Rose, taught more slowly and methodically, helping beginners to see her technique clearly.
From them Jason learned throwing, sculpture technique, and the vocabulary of ceramics. Jason was hypnotized by the wheel, and enjoyed the malleability of plastic clay, finding that it lent itself well to free expression. His teachers recognized Jason's interest, and one of them showed him a secret method of leaving a pebble in the studio door catch, to ensure unlocked, late-night access. The door appeared to be closed, and this would go unnoticed by the night janitors, so that he could have extra practice time at night. There he experimented making his first ceramic drums.
He moved to Olympia, WA in 1991 to finish his Bachelor of Arts at Evergreen State College with an emphasis in sculpture and acoustics. He pursued the sculpture emphasis in non-ceramic mediums; in his first two years in the northwest he had no access to the school pottery studio due to full classes and closing for reconstruction. He began using available open studio space wherever he could find it. In Colorado he had used red clay in the gas-fired reduction kiln, which caused the iron in the clay to flash nicely; in the Northwest he switched to using white stoneware because it lent itself to more interesting oxidation glazes, which was his only option with his electric kiln. After finishing school he spent several months in India; he was fascinated and inspired by the exotic images he found there. He returned to Olympia and began building his own ceramics studio. In 1998 he began work on a tunnel style wood-burning kiln. Working with two other artists, the kiln was completed in just over a year. The kiln has now been in operation for over three years. "The chaotic nature of wood firing and the use of natural materials allow an interplay of control and chance and help to build an earthy, subtle aesthetic. This subtlety is the foundation of inspiration." Jason teaches one on one in his studio in free form style, paying attention to the student's ability level. He is a founding member of the Olympia Clayworks Cooperative.
Close Window