Alexis Moyer
Clay, Sculpture

I think I have always been a potter at heart. Even after more than 30 years of working with clay, I still find it exciting to go into the studio every day, exploring and pushing the limits of what I can do and what the clay can be made to do. I love seeing what happens.

Growing up it never occurred to me that I could be an artist so I chose architecture as my career. It wasn’t until my fourth year majoring in architecture that I discovered my passion to be an artist. Now I had a soul-searching decision to make. Should I stay on my safe and chosen path towards a career in architecture or should I follow my heart into the unknown and become an artist? I took a deep breath and followed the excitement I felt in my heart about creating with clay.

Now that many years have passed I can see that the decision I made as a 22 year old set me onto a course that has turned into a wonderful art-filled life where each day holds a new creative adventure for me. I love that my new path led me to a place where I could add joy and meaning to people’s lives through what I create in my studio and I am honored each time I get to create a commission that holds special meaning for one of my collectors. I am so glad that I followed my heart!

Nancy Michael Susaneck
Mixed Media, Sculpture

I have brought together three passions; Clay, Bead work and Assemblage Art. Throughout my journey to bring the three techniques together my work has grown and changed throughout the years. However I find that one thing holds true, stories evolve with each piece throughout the process.

Found object and recycled art has been an ongoing interest and passion for years. Finding new purposes for items that were once discarded or just needing some new glory, stretches the way we think of an objects purpose and looking at it in a new light keeps ones imagination alive. Beadwork has also been an interest and has been part of my work for many years.
Clay entered my life quite by accident. It gave me yet another medium to love.

The quest began, not wanting to give up any of the three (clay, bead work or assemblage) I focused on bringing them together, and, thus is the body of my work. I use all hand-building techniques to create my figures. Assemblage is achieved with found object, recycled items, embossed metals, bead weaving techniques, beads from all corners of the planet, fiber and wire.

While my early work consisted of boxes, jars and vessels my work today is primarily figurative. I have grown to love my Tribe of One, as I call them. They are a combination of many cultures and ethnicities, brought together as one. My multi-racial grandchildren are a great inspiration for me. My women are all constructed by hand. Each face is made using hollow form techniques, then as each is sculpted they develop their individuality. Bodies are made with slab construction and coiling techniques. I use a stoneware cone 5 clay, cone 5/6 glazes, under-glazes and oxides. My pieces are fired in an electric kiln.

I begin the final step of dressing the figures, constructing hair wefts using horse hair, hand embossed metals, found and re-purposed objects, fiber, beads from all corners of the planet, feathers, wire and anything that I think will enhance the story of the piece. My work brings me great joy and a feeling of hope. It is a never-ending journey.

Nancy was born and raised in New York City and later in Westchester County, New York. Since she was able to hold a crayon Art has always played an important part in her life and a constant means to express herself. Though for the most part the crayons are gone, other mediums have taken over.

After majoring in Art in High School she moved to the magical city Paris. There she attended Le Ecole des Beaux Arts. Painting and drawing were her interest. After various career moves, marriage, raising her children and having a retail Bead Store all avenues lead back to the Arts.

Bringing together Bead work, clay and sculptural assemblage Nancy has been developing her work over the last decade to where it is today. An expression of Hope, Unity, and the strength of women, she guides her sculptures to tell the shear joy of their stories.

Hank Schlau
Sculpture, Metal

I think this began, in two senses, where many good things begin: in “The Cloud of Unknowing.” First, in college, thanks to Huston Smith, I read the book, and that lead to the Desert Fathers, Chuang Tzu, Julian of Norwich, Dogen, Thomas Merton, Meister Eckhart, Richard Rolle…, all great meditators with inclinations to solitude. That lead to a professorship and later working as an editor at Orbis Books. But through all this reading I often wondered what these contemplatives looked like when they were contemplating: how they sat, where, what their expressions revealed (ecstasy, awe, bewilderment?). And so I entered the second Cloud of Unknowing: I gave up the above-named professions and tried to make images of these figures, but I had no idea what I was doing, had never taken an art course. I made the first few pieces by carving clay with a screwdriver. A Mississippi art dealer and friend of mine, Sessions Hootsell, saw what I had made and, in a Mississippi baritone, cryptically said, “Don’t think about it” (a line that could have come from the Cloud of Unknowing). I’ve never been sure if that was a criticism or encouragement, but I obeyed the baritone. Around this time my wife, Karen, and I were spending time, largely broke, in Mexico, where you often, during a wander, come upon statues of saints in niches on roadways and in markets, turning a stroll into a pilgrimage. That was another nudge. Anyway, I started making more of the pieces and people miraculously bought them, which surprised the hell out of me. Karen then gave up a shop she had and started helping me, guiding the business and (she has superb taste) counseling about finishes, colors, designs. That’s it. On we go, in the Cloud of Unknowing….

Jerome Mills
Wood/Sculpture
Tortue Studio

Make something of me and I will make something of you. My relationship with wood began in the late 1970’s when I visited a nearby hardwood sawmill. I noticed huge piles of scraps and asked the owner about them. He told me they were trash and they burned the piles periodically. I asked if I could have some pieces and he told me to help myself. I made my way into the piles of wood. My pulse quickened, my heart pounded. The wood spoke to me, wanted my attention, pulled me in closer. Look, it said, touch me, feel my surface, my elegant curves.

With a borrowed belt sander, a wood rasp and skill saw I took that wood and fashioned benches and coffee tables. The relationship deepened as the wood pulled me into kinship. Career and raising a family took us away from one another; however our alchemical kinship did remain. Then in 2010 I was introduced to the wood lathe through a bowl turning course at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. With that experience a whole new world of relating with wood opened to me.

I am captivated with the organic process that wood undergoes in nature and in my work I turn and sculpt to amplify the metamorphic processes of growth and decay. Selecting and then mounting a piece of wood on the lathe begins an adventure, one where I never quite know the outcome and am always filled with anticipation as to how the wood might be willing to expose some of its mystery to me.

I use a variety of turning tools to assist the wood in revealing different facets of itself. Also I carve burn, bleach, paint and add a variety of elements such as brass, fabric, copper, aluminum, and stone inlay. All of these can help amplify hidden elements within the wood and I hope my forms trigger something in others. Sometimes I use nothing and just let the wood be, allowing it to just speak on its own. The process of creating a piece is alive with the tension between competing forces of playing it safe and pushing limits. During the process patience, skill and willingness to fail are constantly tested. The pursuit of mystery and the joy in revelation of that mystery are well worth the commitment.