Sallee Burns is the owner and the resident artist of the Moon Shadow Gallery in June Lake, a small town between Mammoth Lakes and Lee Vining along Highway 395 in the eastern Sierra. Her own artwork, among several kinds available at the gallery, consists of stoneware clay pottery.
Included in the images she presents on this unique medium are rainbow trout. The subject is highly appropriate, since the June Lake Loop features four lakes — June Lake, Gull Lake, Silver Lake, and Grant Lake — that hold (mainly stocked) rainbows, the prime quarry for thousands of visiting anglers each year.
Sallee was born in Pennsylvania. At the age of 15, she and her family moved to Southern California, where she lived for the next 15 years. An aspiring artist from her childhood on, she took formal classes in pottery and other art media at California State University Northridge.
For several years, she eked out a living as an artist, primarily with soft sculptures and batik paintings. But she missed the four seasons she had experienced in Pennsylvania. Upon turning 30, she packed up and moved to June Lake.
After a few years, highlighted by “a lot of skiing,” in 1985 she procured a kiln and opened a studio. Determined to make a living through art, she focused on pottery, producing stoneware clay pieces using her own multifaceted techniques.
First Sallee forms the bowls and plates, either by hand or thrown on a wheel. She then sketches the desired image onto the piece — she has accumulated many templates of her sketches. In addition to rainbow trout, such images include bears, coyotes, deer, birds, and varied landscapes, all of which reflect her abiding interest in nature and wildlife.
With a sketch of the subject now on the piece, Sallee dips and sprays diluted glazes and stains on the image. With fish, she splatters black stains for the spotting. Then, with a tiny brush, she draws the eyes, fins, and gills.
Next, Sallee applies a synthetic wax coating over the piece to preserve the image for the succeeding stage, which consists of two coverings of glaze. Wax resists the glaze and preserves the painting when the piece is placed in the kiln at 2,230 degrees Fahrenheit. As the wax melts and burns off in the kiln, the glazes harden to produce a glasslike surface — the finished product.
When asked about her affinity for rainbow trout, she says that the shape of the fish combines nicely with the curvature of the plates and bowls. Plus, the fish is one of her most sought-after pottery themes, given June Lake’s popularity with anglers.
Sallee emphasizes that her pottery is functional, as well as artistic. It is lead free and can be used with food.
Sallee herself doesn’t fish, although she has always wanted to. But during the season, she is in her shop seven days a week to capitalize on tourism. In the meantime, she has created an artistic way for people to take home an eye-catching rainbow trout.
