“Who’s on Third” (Side 2) Ceramic: stoneware with under- glaze decoration, fired at cone 10 reduction 12.5” x 7.5” x 9” — **“Who’s on Third” (Side 2)** Ceramic: stoneware with under- glaze decoration, fired at cone 10 reduction 12.5” x 7.5” x 9”

Lois Lambert Gallery presents an exhibition of ceramic works by Joanne Jaffe.

“A search for order in a chaotic time” is how ceramic artist Joanne Jaffe explains her current series “Applied Geometry.” Calling on her first love, drawing, she searched for a form that would serve as a foil to her on-going exploration of surface decoration. Inspired by the sublimity of the worlds created by Kandinsky and the Russian Constructivists, she chose a simple rectangular solid as her base and the triangle, circle, checkerboard as her dominant motifs. The base form becomes a 3-D “tablet” around which the drawings are wrapped.

Jaffe, whose past work has been relatively muted in color, has taken a leap into primaries in the nine pieces that comprise the subset “Circus.” She adds the leaf form in the trio of pieces called “Nature Studies” and tempers her palette to emphasis drawing in the duo titled “Graphics.” A common denominator in all three groups is her fondness for trompe l’oeil effects such as disguising corners by carrying patterns around them, or playing with dimensionality by breaking into the flat plane with the unexpected concave or convex element.

The pieces are slab built, high-fired stoneware painted with underglazes; several of them employ mishima—a technique which involves carving and inlaying slip. While sculptural, the rectangles can also function as vases. Not so the three-part piece—a purely sculptural collaboration with Jon Wexler—called “Who’s on Third.” An outgrowth of the series, it is a composite of three semi-circles which provide a more intricate base for the surface decoration.

Jaffe has shown at the American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA), the Craft and Folk Art Museum and at the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts in Ojai, as well as at art galleries around California. Her work has been published in the Los Angeles Times Magazine and AmericanStyle Magazine, and has been highlighted in Lark Books’ The Best of 500 Ceramics: Celebrating a Decade in Clay and 500 Vases: Contemporary Explorations of a Timeless Form.