Oro y Plata- (gold and silver); the state motto of Montana.  From the vast plains of buffalo grass to the soaring peaks of the Rocky Mountains, there is no doubt that Montana is rich with natural beauty. Yet it was the riches below the stunning landscape; gold, silver, copper, saphires and more that brought settlers in droves durring the 19th Century. Ghost towns such as Bannack, Garnet, and Virgina City are often the only visible reminders of the frenzy caused when rich veins of silver, copper, and gold were discovered. As a child my dad would walk with his father and collect raw sapphires off the ground north of our ranch. He in turn taught us how to pan for gold in the mountain streams durring our summer camping trips. As with most adventures based on the search for elusive riches, ours most often came up very short of expectations. Yet still, those memories are with me to this day, a half century later. 
 
     Those dreams of discovery and the awe inspiring landscape they took place in are my inspirations for the "Oro y Plata" series of pottery. The rich veins of silver and gold glazes, along with flashes of copper, erupt playfully from the surface of the sapphire blue and emerald green pottery. The glazes themselves  contain  silver (silver nitrate) and copper (copper carbonate), giving the surface those fantastic metalic flashes.  
     6.75"Wx5.5"H