Arkansas Art
Spring Street Pottery
Eureka Springs potters Gary Eagan and Steve Beacham are pushing the limits of high-fire porcelain
BY
Sarah Kinser
PHOTOGRAPHY
Brian Meredith

High-fire porcelain isn’t for every potter. Its rich, buttery texture can be difficult to form, and the scorching temperatures at which it’s fired—over 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit—cause the clay to easily move and shift in the kiln. In the summer, the basement studio of Spring Street Pottery can reach 90 degrees when the kiln is firing, but there are tradeoffs for working with this challenging medium. “The great advantage is that it’s a wonderful white background, so the glazes do things on porcelain they won’t do on stoneware. And the clay body is very, very chip resistant,” says studio founder Gary Eagan.

Gary and his studio partner Steve Beacham have been working exclusively in high-fire porcelain for many years. The artists met in 1979 when Steve, then a manager at Tyson Foods with a degree in vocational agriculture, came to Eureka Springs on vacation and decided to make the Arkansas art mecca his home. Soon, he joined Gary’s studio as an apprentice. “I had no direct experience as an artist or craftsman. I just had an interest in it,” Steve says. Gary, who studied art in college and graduate school, opened his studio in 1970 and worked with over 20 apprentice potters by the time Steve joined. He says the experiences with others helped to develop his own work. “I actually think I learn by trying to answer other people’s questions. A lot of times, I don’t have the answer right off. I have to go look it up and find out. It’s a big influence, and a positive one,” Gary says.

Having worked together for so long, Steve and Gary admit that they influence each other’s art, but they try to keep their individual collections distinct. Steve’s pottery is often whimsical, featuring animal forms—especially dragons and lizards—and pinecone images. “If I see people smiling when they look at those pieces, that’s what I’m going for,” he says. Much of Gary’s work incorporates themes from plant life, particularly elegant calla lilies and irises, as well as his signature tree-branch motif.

Their latest collections, which will debut at Zarks Gallery during Eureka Springs’ May Festival of the Arts, reflect their own distinct styles and their shared passion for exploring and expanding the boundaries of their medium. Gary’s collection, entitled Vessels: East Wind Series, is based on traditional Japanese teapots and features deep finger lines carved into the sides of the pieces. “They’re altered in their shape,” he explains. “I’m actually going to rip all the way through the sides of these vases.” Steve’s similarly non-traditional collection delivers on what its title—Deconstructed, Reconstructed, New Beginnings—promises. He describes the process of creating a piece of deconstructed pottery. “I actually throw a piece, and then I cut it up into smaller pieces, drill holes in it and reconstruct it using copper wire.” Zarks Gallery owner Rick Armellini has carried Spring Street Pottery for over ten years and says of Steve and Gary’s art, “I think it’s just such exceptional work, and it’s unique. Between them, they have probably 60-something years of experience doing pots.”

With that much experience and a fan-base of collectors who have been following their work for over 20 years, it would be easy to rest on their creative laurels. But working with high-fire porcelain continues to provide enough challenges to keep these potters on their toes. “We’re constantly looking for new stuff—new glazes, new glaze effects,” Gary says. Steve adds, “Several of our glaze combinations that were the most successful were just accidents, and we had to figure out exactly how they happened to be able to reproduce them.” Though measuring materials, mixing glazes, and firing pieces at just the right temperature can seem an almost scientific process, Steve and Gary are still captivated by the inexact art of working with the unpredictable clay. “I almost think of the clay as like a living thing,” Steve says. “There’s something kind of fascinating about it. You just coax it along and hope it behaves, but sometimes it doesn’t.”