Firefly Firebowl

Product Overview

The Firefly is a deep, large bowl that shields fire from wind within its three petals while providing an inviting space to gaze into the fire. Joining the cut off from the King Isosceles to the form of a Big Bowl O' Zen, the Firefly resembles a large flower bud or seed pod.

A study in contrasts, the firefly uses light and dark to create a heightened illusion of depth, a chiaroscuro effect accentuating shadow and flame. Like fireflies captured in a jar on a summer eve, the sparks circle enclosed, glowing stars of your own.

Baroque painter Caravaggio used a powder of dried fireflies to prepare photosensitive canvases 200 years before the invention of photography. Images projected onto this magical surface would fluoresce for half an hour, giving him time to lay the broad strokes of a painting using white lead mixed with minerals visible in the dark. His visions have become known as masterpieces of his time… what visions might you conceive while gazing into the shifting fire inside your Firefly?

Additional Information
	Made in America	View all Products From this Artist

I'm best known as an artist and designer, but relaxing makes me tense, so I tend to put in a lot of hours on diverse projects.

I've been making art professionally since about 1995, and have made a full-time living as an artist since 2000. On the way to a successful art career I've been a poet and writer, a tech geek, a print and web designer, illustrator, industrial designer, musician, teacher, actor, set designer and even a paid guru once.

I like to joke that I'm the world's most well-educated self-taught artist - I've learned pretty much everything I know by doing it. I work in a lot of different styles using a wide variety of materials. I find that each new medium informs all which have come before.

It's all the same thing in the end - I wake up most days thinking about how I want to change, fix or improve some aspect of the world. And after a couple cups of coffee I get started on it. My specialty is impossibility remediation: if it can't be done, I'm on it.

Art has been good to me, and I feel very lucky to have been able to pursue what interests me on my own terms. As an artist, I am also a small business owner who supports a family, pays taxes, and supports other local businesses through the sale of my fire pits. I have a part-time assistant who depends on the income I provide him to make his house payment. I buy the materials for my firebowls at the scrapyard, paying a premium to have them cut and delivered (I've spent over $10,000 at the scrapyard this year alone). I am one of the larger customers for my local freight company and am pleased to be able to pass along my 75% savings to you.

There are not a lot of successful businesses or job opportunities in the area of Michigan where I live, and the income I make from my art and spend in the community is important to the people I support. The fact that I am able to sell my work globally and bring money into the Michigan economy (one of the worst in the nation) is something that I am very proud of and I feel pretty good about the fact that I can help people pay their bills while larger corporate companies are laying people off left and right.