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Annclaire Greig — ceramics, mixed media

The Arts Center Exhibitions:

• 'Portals,' Winter Show & Silent Auction, 2011
• 'Where Birds Dream' Show and Silent Auction, Winter 2010

Artist's Statement, 'Eye to Eye' - 'Portals,' Winter Show & Silent Auction, 2011:

If a portal is defined as a passage for moving us from one place to another, then I feel like I have been stuck inside a portal.  The challenge has been to find a way to express the idea of a portal without it being a cliché.  At one point my husband suggested I take a picture of all my failed portals and have that be my piece.

After combining beads, fiber art with my ceramics, I went back to one of my favorite juxtapositions, found wood with ceramics pieces.

So what is it like to be stuck inside a portal? Maybe not so bad if images can be reflected back to you. Check it out.

Artist Statement, 'Where Birds Dream' Show and Silent Auction, Winter 2010:

All of my adult life I have used my tactile sense of my finger tips in the success of my work; first as a Dental Hygienist, then as a Massage Therapist. Now as a clay artist, I combine those tactile skills with the visual to form my pieces.

More free-formed than intentional, I follow the feeling of the clas as it suggests how to move and change the form. There is freedom and joy in working this way and the never-ending practice of trusting what Iknow and lettnig go of outcome. 

Letting go is also necessary to the types of firing I like best. Wood, gas-fired soda/salt and raku are more unpredictable firing processes. Forming the piece is just the beginning - the ever changing ways heating moves ash, soda or salt vapors around a klin, or the patterns left by combustibles during the final steps of raku firing are all reminders to use my knowledge then let go and enjoy.

Visit Annclaire Greig's website.