Malcolm Davis

John Albert Murphy is best known for slip cast porcelain vessels with distinct surface pattern designs of black and white stripes. Murphy bisque fires his work, then outlines and creates the patterns, using masking tape and colored slips applied using a ?pointillist? painting technique. Throughout his career, however, he has employed many forming methods including throwing, hand-building and press-molding.

Murphy says of his creative methods: ?First I work out the ideas in my head ... Once resolved, I begin to execute. Throwing, hand-building, press-moulding, and slipcasting are all processes I have pursued, the latter being my most recent. I slipcast with porcelain for the translucent quality. Black glaze is sprayed on my masking-tape stencils to obtain the surface pattern design.The process of slip-casting, bisque firing, sanding, re-bisque firing, taping, spraying, un-taping is a meticulous process, unforgiving and time-consuming?During this time, I move into a meditative atmosphere? Sometimes my work references inspirations, current events, personal information, or just entertains dreams. I make mental notes, consider designs, then transfer them on to paper to make a master model. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. I discard what doesn't and move on. It is all part of life."[1]

Murphy lists John Loree and Joseph Zajac as two influential teachers he encountered in the early 1970s at Eastern Michigan University (EMU). Murphy is a past President of the Michigan Potters? Association, the Program Director of the Michigan Ceramics Art Association, and a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA). Murphy travels to Asia regularly to teach ceramics classes.