Flat-sided bottle (Johanna kiln, glaze chamber), 1995, stoneware with sunflower-seed hull ash glaze over slip painting, 11 in. high. Bresnahan #62.

For centuries, Chinese and Korean potters decorated their flat-sided bottles and flasks with painted images. Bresnahan brushed on the abstract designs here with a thick porcelain slip and then coated the bottle with an ash glaze made from sunflower-seed hulls. Streaked with iron, the golden glaze covers the vessel so completely that only subtle undulations of the pattern can be seen on the surface. Photograph by Gary Mortensen.