The first time Colleen worked with clay on a wheel was in 1989 at Pottery 7 in San Francisco, located near Golden Gate Park. Her earliest clay memory was as a child making a mold of her horse’s footprint from the earth in the dug out. “I’ve come a long way from those early mold-making days on the farm!”
“My first raku experience was with a Japanese American in San Francisco who didn’t speak very much English. The clay spoke through him. I thought he was pretty close to the source.”
Next, she was lucky enough to be a student of Valerie Metcalfe, a renowned Canadian artist specializing in wheel thrown porcelain who studied in Japan. Her influence got Colleen into working with porcelain. She also studied under the Korean professor Yun Don Nam (Nam) at UNC Chapel Hill, where she learned sculptural techniques in independent study in the Art Department.
By far, the strongest influence on her work was working with Paul Soldner, one of the pioneers of the discovery of the decorative ceramic ware we now call American Raku. She worked with Paul as a ‘special assistant’ and was fortunate to work with him on the lecture circuit, assisting his teaching across the USA. In 2000, Colleen co-produced an award-winning documentary film, The Courage to Explore, with David Kasper about Raku.
Colleen’s other profession is a community health nurse. She sees patients who are on home care or hospice, and helps people make the best of the inevitable. “So I make art with clay and I help people go back to the earth. It’s a wonderful balance, the aesthetics of dying beautifully and making beautiful art is a nice parallel in my life work. I thought about the raku ceramic connection. They both are high sensory, and also both are very spiritually demanding ways to make one’s way in life. Raku is about the acceptance of imperfection. It’s the beauty of imperfection I strive to recognize. My heart lifts when I discover this in whatever job I do.”
Today, Colleen works on a wheel and bisque-fires (first fire) the clay at another satellite studio. “There ‘s a two-way communication between my creative flow, meaning the energy it takes to make the art, and the art that tells me when it’s done because it might flop or not withstand the rigorous firing process of raku or even my own patience. I do wedging, centering and throwing. A curvy vase or wavy tea bowl! I’ve been doing this for so long, I have a sense of experience with it that now feels very consistent.”
She bisque fires each piece in an electric kiln. It becomes hard enough to glaze, with a combination of commercial underglazes and her own raku concoctions. The next stage is in the raku kiln using propane and firing each piece to about 1700 degrees F. When the pot is red hot it gets removed with metal tongs and put into a reduction chamber where the pots cool down and the results are always a surprise.
“I’m moving my work towards more conceptual pieces, as I become more seasoned as an artist. I like to use the pots as building blocks to communicate a larger message of universal truths and dealing with our inevitable finiteness. The large and tiny pots bring joy to people… and are a wake- up call. I hope to raise the level of people’s awareness and elevate their consciousness.”
To view more of Colleen’s work, visit her Chatham Artists Guild gallery page.
