Ira Winarsky was Professor Emeritus at the University of Florida. In addition, he received his Master of Fine Arts degree in Sculpture from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art. His ceramic art appeared in numerous magazines including Ceramics Monthly, Ceramics Art and Perception and New Ceramics. His art has also been shown in numerous solo shows in galleries and museums. It’s the subject of three books written and published by him, “Ira’s New Art Book” A Portfolio 2008, and “Ira Winarsky: Art Portfolio 2010: Iridescent Ceramic Landscape Sculpture”, and “Iridescent Ceramic Landscape Vessels 2012”.

• Born: 1942
• Died: 2015
• Hometown: Newark, NJ
• Education: Temple University – Tyler School of Art

Ira saw his life like an art piece, a work in progress. It was also been a continuous quest for the right media to make the art, and to refine its artistic expression, ranging from interactive electronic representations to phosphorescent ceramics. With his Iridescent Ceramic Landscape Sculpture he found the media and technology that encompasses the three goals that he set for his art: first, it must relate to the viewer and the environment; second it must relate to nature; third, it must be beautiful. He was quoted as saying, “art is its own reward” and it is the process of making art that gave him the most pleasure.

Ira Winarsky’s Artistic Style

The iridescent ceramic glazes, an integral part of his ceramic art, have historically been considered a type of alchemy, and the formulae for making them has been kept secret for centuries. The alchemists, and artists using these glazes never disclosed how they made them, and they died with their secrets. To this date, it is extraordinarily rare to find iridescent glazes, particularly in a broad spectrum of colors. Ira was writing a book that explained the basic technology and chemistry for making these glazes at the time of his death.

Ira’s passion was to discover these secrets of the great ceramicists who created these glazes and to build upon them to create new glazes for his art. There was almost no literature on the subject, so he had to start his research with the basic chemistry of glazes and metals and the physics of light. The iridescent glaze had to function as a thin prism, emulating Sir Isaac Newton’s glass prism that divided natural daylight into a rainbow of colors. His success came with a few basic colors. Eventually he had hundreds, the result of over 3000 glaze tests and over 300 glaze firings. The glaze colors encompassed an entire rainbow of iridescent colors. Different colors and thicknesses of glaze layers and different numbers of layers create different iridescent effects.