Yuri Gershtein is a distinguished professor of physics at Rutgers University and a researcher at CERN. While he has long appreciated the ceramic arts, it was the 2020 lockdowns that brought him to making pottery, sparking a profound shift from observing form to creating it. A series of lucky accidents brought him to John Reinking and the community of potters John fostered around his anagama.
He is inspired by British studio pottery and traditional Korean and Japanese ceramics, gravitating to loose forms and decorations that capture malleability of clay and record spontaneous gestures of maker’s hands. He prefers surfaces from reduction firing, especially produced by interaction of clay, flame, and ash in a wood fired kiln.