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| Nancy Desert Lizard Heraty Ceramic Artist DesertLizard@DesertLizardPottery.com Artist Statement: The experience of clay is intimate for me. The relationship between my outer physical body (working as a tool) and inner soul (reflecting my creative spirit) is what attracts me. I become lost in the process and am fed by the process of creating in clay. Images arise to fill the surfaces of my pots reflected from my life experiences, dreams and visions, and my inner world. Inspiration comes from a wellspring of ancient sources. _____________________________________________________________________ This is my story in clay… by: Nancy Desert Lizard Heraty My recent style of working in clay began after I worked with master potter Juan Quesada, who single handedly resurrected the indigenous techniques of the Casas Grandes region of Mexico. It is referred to as the Mata Ortiz style. They are similar in style and technique to Native American Pueblo pottery. His teachings along with his American protégé Michael Wisner, changed my way of making pots. I went into the Anderson Ranch two week intensive with one way of potting and came out in a whole new (yet old) way. I feel like I’ve connected to an ancient lineage of pottery. Not contemporary in the least. Juan and Michael taught me how to find clay and dig it locally. Most of my clay comes from in and around Brookfield and the local suburbs. Wherever I see a bulldozer and a pile of dirt, I am there with my buckets begging for the clay. Then I process it at home in my studio. I usually form it on a potter’s wheel, or in some cases hand build with coils or slabs. From there the bone dry clay is sanded smooth, oiled, and then burnished with a shiny stone to achieve a smooth, shiny finish. The surface is then ready to paint with Mexican clay paints that I buy from Wisner. I have made my own brushes from my straight brown hair. After painting, the pots are oiled and gently buffed again, and are ready to fire in my kiln I built from an old electric kiln shell that was donated to me. I fire outside with propane. The pots are fired to 1500 degrees, a low temperature firing, to hold onto the burnished shine. The pots remain porous and are not meant for heavy use, but for purely visual inspiration and to share my love of beauty. Inspiration for the graphics on my pots comes from my life journey. My past career in graphic design gave me a foundation, but the rest comes from my soul, from ancient sources, and from my experiences during Vision Quests and Retreats that I co-lead with my soulmate. Those experiences have opened me up to another place deep within. Yoga gives a lot to me physically. It helps me relax and renew and to shut off my mind. It also comes in handy to be strong to withstand the physicality of lugging bags and buckets of clay and bending over at the wheel and to paint. My life in clay is an intimate experience for me. The relationship between my outer physical body, the tool, and my inner creative spirit, the soul, is what it is all about for me. It is purely an intuitive process. Pot making for me is meditative, from the dig, to the pot, to the paint, to the fire. I lose myself. Each step is as vital to the process as breathing is to my body. The process is what feeds me, what I end up with at the end of the final step is a mystery. I just get there and say OH WOW! ______________________________________________________ |