Help with some Pottery Finds

Hi all- found these both today! Looked like a little more than amateur pottery mostly because the signatures looked “professional” LOL. Can anyone recognize or read what they say?

 

Please edit your posting & click on 'show all images full size'. TY

 

Done thanks!

 

yes I agree with you on the Raku piece- looks close to a Ferguson. I don’t think the brown one is the same. Do those look like two “j”s to you? Maybe jojou?

 

If no one else have thoughts on the signatures. Can Anyone tell me what they think the style of the brown one is? I know the green one is raku.. is the brown one Native American?

 

Both are contemporary studio pottery. Raku (American post-fired reduction, as opposed to traditional Japanese Raku ware) is a relatively "new" technique when it comes to pottery, credited to American studio potter Paul Soldner, who developed it in the 1960s, and is now widely done by potters, students, and others, around the world.

As to the brown shallow bowl, it is made from a commercial stoneware clay, thrown and trimmed on a potter's wheel, glazed and fired in a kiln...none of which is true of traditional Native American pottery. It also looks like that is a date ( '99 ) at the end of the signature. As to the "style," about all I can add is to point out is that it appears to be decorated with a "sgraffito" or incised technique

Since there are literally millions of studio potters world-wide who may have made these, unless they were made by a well-known person, or you are extremely lucky and someone happens to recognize the work, it is unlikely that it will be possible to identify the makers.