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Barbara Markello — raku ceramics

The Arts Center Exhibitions:

• 'Portals,' Winter Show & Silent Auction, 2011

Artist's Statement:

Portal to Nature’s Art Forms
Raku Ceramics

From my early years finding trilobite fossils along the Lake Erie shoreline and countless summers camping both coasts and all the land in between, with my parents (Chemistry & Earth Science teachers), I developed a deep appreciation of the natural world and it’s diversity. The oceans were my biggest draw, probably due to the early fascination with trilobites and ammonites, or maybe because the oceans are a constantly changing landscape. They are never stagnant. Nature is never stagnant, but is a constant flow of ever changing events.

When nature is quietly observed, you can see the various art forms it produces. The more obvious is the changing color of the leaves. But, it’s the small things which escape most of us, probably a result of life being too busy and complicated.

This ‘Portal to Nature’s Art forms’ offers a glimpse into the small, sometimes missed natural world. It is both a physical portal (seen through the raku piece) and a metaphorical portal which shows the light coming through agates, various shell fragments of previous life forms, and the delicate curved features of driftwood. All of these natural fragments incorporate my raku ceramics in a natural, flowing, cohesive structure. Each supporting each other, yet also providing for individual uniqueness of the various art forms.

My work incorporates unique raku-fired pieces, with personally polished agates/ jaspers, shells, and driftwood found on the Oregon Coast.