After working mostly in "sherbert-colored polyester" for the wardrobe department of the "Lawrence Welk Show," among others, in the early 1980s, David Roesler needed a change. In 1986, he took a Glendale Community College ceramics course in which master potter Robert Kibler demonstrated mishima, a Japanese technique derived from bun chung, developed during Korea's 15th-Century Yi period.
Roesler became enamored of the form in which carved patterns are filled with color then scraped smooth to reveal the inlaid designs. The process is repeated for each color. "There's something about the continual scraping and uncovering of designs that's therapeutic," he says.
