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Pottery and Persistence
Since 1913, Panama Pottery has created containers for the flowers of Sacramento
By Bob Sylva - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PDT Saturday, March 24, 2007
Story appeared in unknown section, Page CALIFORNIA LIFE16
City politics forged in a brick kiln.
* * *
It's a chilly day, and Panama Pottery is colder still. And damp. And dirty. Decades of crusted clay are splattered everywhere.
Passing light-rail and freight trains shudder the sheet-metal walls like a clap of theatrical thunder.
Let's meet a chilled Daniel Davidson.
Davidson is the new clay master, in charge of rekindling the kilns, in restarting flowerpot production and establishing a potters'
mecca. Given his soiled, slightly unearthed appearance, his zeal, you could call him a terra cotta warrior.
Davidson is 42 years old. He has brown eyes, a graying black ponytail. He is wearing denim coveralls, a blue shirt, a brown
bandana about his head. Head to foot, he is stained by red clay. Clay is in his nostrils, clay is in his bloodstream.
"Everywhere we turn, we find something interesting," says Davidson, this artist turned archaeologist, gesturing at the factory.
"Things have been here for a long time. We're still trying to figure out the machinery. How they were built. How they're used."
Davidson grew up in Citrus Heights. His father, Daniel Davidson, was a track coach and teacher at Foothill High School. As a kid,
Davidson displayed an aptitude for art. He studied painting with Gary Pruner at American River College, and took a providential
ceramics class from Yoshio Taylor at CSUS.
"That's what got me started," he says, of changing his medium from paint to clay. "I just like the organic quality of it. I liked the
wheel. I felt like I wasn't 'making' something. But that I was 'growing' something. It (clay) takes on a life of its own."
From 1995 until 2004, when it closed, Davidson operated Sol Ceramica, a potters studio on Del Paso Boulevard. He rented space
to upward of 50 potters, plus gave lessons and workshops to adults and kids. In his own work, Davidson makes stoneware and
playful, outsized cups, teapots, and other vessels.
At Panama, Davidson hopes to start a potters cooperative, where artists can both make and display their wares. And he has a
name in mind -- "Clay Farmers." He explains, "We are planting the seeds of our imagination. We are working with the earth. Our
harvest is all these pots."
Bob Brady is a longtime faculty member at CSUS and an accomplished sculptor and ceramist. He thinks the idea of a potters
co-op at Panama is a good one. He suggests that DeCamilla and Davidson explore the possibility of applying for arts grants, of
setting up an artist-in- residence program. "I'm all for a community having that potential," says Brady. "And to be in a building
with that kind of history, well, it's awesome."
Moreover, says Brady, making fine art in a terra cotta factory isn't that far-fetched. He points to the example of Jun Kaneko.
Kaneko, 64, born in Japan and educated at UC Berkeley, is probably the most famous potter-ceramist in the world today.
Kaneko, whose studio is in Omaha, makes these huge "dangos" (dumplings) and colossal heads the size of Easter Island
sentinels. He fires them at Mission Clay, whose vast kilns in the Bay Area city of Fremont and in Pittsburg, Kan., normally
accomodate giant clay sewer pipe.
Maybe the Clay Farmers at Panama Pottery can someday sow and harvest the work of a Jun Kaneko?
* * *
On another day, Davidson and his crew are about to make some flowerpots. Several weeks ago, Davidson fired up one of the
beehive kilns for the first time. He is still learning the kiln's combustible moods.
He has two assistants -- Trenton Ferguson, 19, and Daniel Hynes, 25. Before Panama, Ferguson was flipping burgers for minimum
wage; Hynes was pouring coffee at Starbucks.
"I couldn't do the work without them," says Davidsons. "I think they are learning a trade here. They are not disposable workers."
Despite the daily splatter of wet clay, Hynes says, "This the best job I ever had." Perhaps his enthusiasm is derived from the fact
that the pace, the process, the machinery of Panama Pottery shares much in common with Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory.
Bags of powdered clay are mixed in a huge vat of water. A mighty electric motor sparks to life, turning wheels, cogs, canvas
belts. Another lever is thrown and the clay is pumped into a filter press. From there, clay discs are deposited into a mixer. More
machinations. The clay is then excreted onto a wheeled cart. It is rich, dark, gooey, the consistency of chocolate frosting.
From there, the clay goes to a jigger machine, where wooden paddles are lowered into various-sized plaster molds, spreading and
edging the pliable clay. As the clay dries, the pots shrink. They are removed from the molds and put into drying racks. After that,
the pots are wheeled on a ceiling trolley to the kilns.
The kilns are made of brick, with a brick floor and a flaky, scorched brick ceiling. They resemble monster pizza ovens. Each kiln
can hold thousands of pots. The pots are fired for 65 hours in temperatures approaching 1,800 degrees. Little cones of clay are
placed inside to act as thermometers.
Now, off to the side, there are stacks of finished pots arranged on wooden pallets. On a late afternoon, from a bank of
sunset-facing windows, the pots are bathed in a celestial glow. Paradiso after purgatorio.
The next step probably involves geraniums.
Since 1913, Panama Pottery has created containers for the flowers of Sacramento
By Bob Sylva - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PDT Saturday, March 24, 2007
Story appeared in unknown section, Page CALIFORNIA LIFE16
City politics forged in a brick kiln.
* * *
It's a chilly day, and Panama Pottery is colder still. And damp. And dirty. Decades of crusted clay are splattered everywhere.
Passing light-rail and freight trains shudder the sheet-metal walls like a clap of theatrical thunder.
Let's meet a chilled Daniel Davidson.
Davidson is the new clay master, in charge of rekindling the kilns, in restarting flowerpot production and establishing a potters'
mecca. Given his soiled, slightly unearthed appearance, his zeal, you could call him a terra cotta warrior.
Davidson is 42 years old. He has brown eyes, a graying black ponytail. He is wearing denim coveralls, a blue shirt, a brown
bandana about his head. Head to foot, he is stained by red clay. Clay is in his nostrils, clay is in his bloodstream.
"Everywhere we turn, we find something interesting," says Davidson, this artist turned archaeologist, gesturing at the factory.
"Things have been here for a long time. We're still trying to figure out the machinery. How they were built. How they're used."
Davidson grew up in Citrus Heights. His father, Daniel Davidson, was a track coach and teacher at Foothill High School. As a kid,
Davidson displayed an aptitude for art. He studied painting with Gary Pruner at American River College, and took a providential
ceramics class from Yoshio Taylor at CSUS.
"That's what got me started," he says, of changing his medium from paint to clay. "I just like the organic quality of it. I liked the
wheel. I felt like I wasn't 'making' something. But that I was 'growing' something. It (clay) takes on a life of its own."
From 1995 until 2004, when it closed, Davidson operated Sol Ceramica, a potters studio on Del Paso Boulevard. He rented space
to upward of 50 potters, plus gave lessons and workshops to adults and kids. In his own work, Davidson makes stoneware and
playful, outsized cups, teapots, and other vessels.
At Panama, Davidson hopes to start a potters cooperative, where artists can both make and display their wares. And he has a
name in mind -- "Clay Farmers." He explains, "We are planting the seeds of our imagination. We are working with the earth. Our
harvest is all these pots."
Bob Brady is a longtime faculty member at CSUS and an accomplished sculptor and ceramist. He thinks the idea of a potters
co-op at Panama is a good one. He suggests that DeCamilla and Davidson explore the possibility of applying for arts grants, of
setting up an artist-in- residence program. "I'm all for a community having that potential," says Brady. "And to be in a building
with that kind of history, well, it's awesome."
Moreover, says Brady, making fine art in a terra cotta factory isn't that far-fetched. He points to the example of Jun Kaneko.
Kaneko, 64, born in Japan and educated at UC Berkeley, is probably the most famous potter-ceramist in the world today.
Kaneko, whose studio is in Omaha, makes these huge "dangos" (dumplings) and colossal heads the size of Easter Island
sentinels. He fires them at Mission Clay, whose vast kilns in the Bay Area city of Fremont and in Pittsburg, Kan., normally
accomodate giant clay sewer pipe.
Maybe the Clay Farmers at Panama Pottery can someday sow and harvest the work of a Jun Kaneko?
* * *
On another day, Davidson and his crew are about to make some flowerpots. Several weeks ago, Davidson fired up one of the
beehive kilns for the first time. He is still learning the kiln's combustible moods.
He has two assistants -- Trenton Ferguson, 19, and Daniel Hynes, 25. Before Panama, Ferguson was flipping burgers for minimum
wage; Hynes was pouring coffee at Starbucks.
"I couldn't do the work without them," says Davidsons. "I think they are learning a trade here. They are not disposable workers."
Despite the daily splatter of wet clay, Hynes says, "This the best job I ever had." Perhaps his enthusiasm is derived from the fact
that the pace, the process, the machinery of Panama Pottery shares much in common with Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory.
Bags of powdered clay are mixed in a huge vat of water. A mighty electric motor sparks to life, turning wheels, cogs, canvas
belts. Another lever is thrown and the clay is pumped into a filter press. From there, clay discs are deposited into a mixer. More
machinations. The clay is then excreted onto a wheeled cart. It is rich, dark, gooey, the consistency of chocolate frosting.
From there, the clay goes to a jigger machine, where wooden paddles are lowered into various-sized plaster molds, spreading and
edging the pliable clay. As the clay dries, the pots shrink. They are removed from the molds and put into drying racks. After that,
the pots are wheeled on a ceiling trolley to the kilns.
The kilns are made of brick, with a brick floor and a flaky, scorched brick ceiling. They resemble monster pizza ovens. Each kiln
can hold thousands of pots. The pots are fired for 65 hours in temperatures approaching 1,800 degrees. Little cones of clay are
placed inside to act as thermometers.
Now, off to the side, there are stacks of finished pots arranged on wooden pallets. On a late afternoon, from a bank of
sunset-facing windows, the pots are bathed in a celestial glow. Paradiso after purgatorio.
The next step probably involves geraniums.
March 24,2007 Sacramento Bee - Home & Garden Article Below: