Vessel Artists React to Senses in Shaping Materials

Since this show has such a wide variety of mediums represented, we are going to just mix it up here in this blog and not try to keep everyone in categories as we continue to preview the artists. Please enjoy hearing about two more today. 

Peggy Wiedemann

I graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with a degree in Fine Arts, and a broad interest in expanding my knowledge, skills and talent.  I experimented in a variety of mediums including oils, pen-and-ink drawing, printmaking, sculpture and ceramics.

As a teacher, I introduced art and the creative process to children of all ages.  During this time, I also managed an art gallery and was an importer of baskets of all kinds from a host of countries and cultures.

The basket import business exposed me to a variety of cultures, craftsmen and artists, as well as many forms of materials and techniques.  It also enticed me to become an avid collector of Native American and African baskets.

As a contemporary basket maker, I use a wide variety of materials.  I have a strong preference for natural fibers and I also enjoy personally gathering many of these materials, such as pine needles.  To these natural materials, I sometimes add metal, beads and “found” objects to form unique pieces.

The inter-play among mind, hands and a host of materials continually stimulates the creative process and leads my work in new directions.  Using traditional materials in sometimes un-orthodox ways, I want to create designs, shapes and styles that stretch the imagination and react with the senses.

Milan Kavanagh

My pieces convey the feelings and emotions that I experience as I am creating them, the feelings as the clay moves in my hands … shifting, changing, full of endless possibilities.

Biography: A graphic design graduate of California’s  Art Center College of Design, Milan’s interest in pottery came from a desire to express her creativity in three dimensions as well as two.

Milan’s ceramic creations each start as a thrown piece.  She finds that the symmetry and silhouette of a form thrown on the wheel is a natural incubator and starting point for her gestural creations.  Some pieces are planned via drawings from her sketchbook, while others are inspired spontaneously by the forms themselves as they are thrown and manipulated.  Vessels:  All the Eyes Can Hold is Milan’s first juried show.