Fire's Eye filled with pottery, glass

Dan and Susan Wheeler’s Fire’s Eye Gallery is filled with pottery, including Dan’s delicate porcelain bowls, plates, vases and jars in reds, cobalt and browns. Susan’s hanging chains of fused glass light up the windows, spreading rainbows across the floor when the sun shines.

The work of other potters, such as Tom Coleman, also is on display.

It’s easy to distinguish one potter’s items from those of another. Each has a unique style, way of shaping things, and use of color and glazing technique.

While some of the other potters create wall hangings or oversize vessels meant for display only, Dan makes mostly functional items.

He uses porcelain clay so the finished pieces have a distinctive ring when tapped. Coarser clays don’t produce that sound.

Susan also makes plates and bowls, using the same fused glass that goes into her hanging ornaments. They glow bright orange, green, yellow, red or blue beside the more solid forms of the pottery.

The Wheelers reopened the gallery, which had been closed for five years or more, after returning to Yamhill County from the coast. The building was a mess, they said, but the bones were still there. It took weeks of hard labor, cleaning and painting before they could stack their clay and glass creations on the display shelves and open the doors.

Fire’s Eye Gallery is located next to the Lawrence Gallery and behind Barrel 18, seven miles west of McMinnville off Highway 18. The address is 19915 S.W. Muddy Valley Road.

It’s open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Monday, closing only on Tuesdays.