Kenny Kicklighter likens clay art to romance.

"There’s the heights of exhilaration and the depths of depression," he said.

Kicklighter should know. The artist spent more than a year creating and firing dozens upon dozens of pots, koi fish, rocks and other wall sculptures for "One Life, Many Dreams," on exhibit at Louis Pohl Gallery through Feb. 11.

"Not everything in clay is successful," he explains. "I’d have to make something two or three times, sometimes, before it came out right. Sometimes the clay goes through thermal shock – it might not survive the firing. I made more than 20 koi to get those 11 in the show."

Kicklighter’s range is impressive. The majority of his pots are rustic, asymmetrically shaped and full of textures with layers of glazes and touches of fingerprint pinches and tiny scoring. The koi wall sculpture, in contrast, comprises rocks and koi so accurately depicted they look real.

The fish were hand-sculpted to create a sense of movement and either pit-fired or fired using the saggar raku technique. In saggar raku, the piece is placed inside another ceramic container for firing. Originally, the technique was created to prevent delicate pieces from being destroyed by the fire’s wood ash.

Kicklighter, however, uses saggar raku to create specific colors and effects. He brushed liquid ferric chloride on the fish, then wrapped them in foil, which functioned as protection. The results almost exactly mimic the colorings and markings of real koi. Other fish were pit-fired to create specific hues and speckling.

THE ARTIST also created a wall installation with dozens of clay pieces he formed from kashigata, or Japanese wood confectionery molds. The pieces are roughly 6-by-9 inches. Kicklighter assembled them to form a torii, or traditional Japanese Shinto gateway.

According to Kicklighter, kashigata date back as early as the 14th century. The molds are intricately carved into elaborate scenes of cranes flying against the backdrop of a moon, or a lotus in all its detail, or beautifully decorated fans. Important Japanese symbols, such as tortoises, bamboo, pine trees and Mount Fuji, are subjects of kashigata. The Japanese would press sugar and rice-flour mixtures into the molds, and the treats were served at special events such as birthdays, weddings, New Year’s or during tea ceremonies.

Kicklighter has collected close to 100 molds over more than 10 years.

"I spent a small fortune just collecting the carvings. Some were easy to acquire; others were difficult because some are rare and there were bidding wars among serious collectors," he says.

Kicklighter’s work captures every subtly carved detail.

"I hand-press the clay into the carvings, and I’ve been doing this for so long I can get a sense of almost feeling the carving through the clay," he says.

IT MAY surprise some that Kicklighter’s day job is in construction, but for the artist, "everything can be an art."

"Construction involves a different type of creative thinking. In itself, it can be called an art," he says. "I’m a true artist by nature – I try to see every task as a work of art rather than as another chore."

That creative spirit draws him to the element of mystery that clay firing entails.

"The more you practice, the closer you get to being able to control the process. But when you’re working with fire, there comes a point when you will not be in the driver’s seat," he says. "You have to let go and let Mother Nature finish it. Part of it is so elusive, and that’s what makes the process so attractive to me."