Visions In Clay 2023
Vicki Gunter she/her
Bio:
Vicki’s earliest clay influence, was with famed clay artist Clayton Bailey in 1968. Her eyes were opened to sculptures of belching clams, peeing dogs and giant inflating penises.
At SF State Vicki was swept into the anti-war, ecology, student civil rights movements and joined the 5-month strike for the first Black Studies Department in the country. She studied ceramics with Joe Hawley and Charles “Bud” McKee and created an Etruscan-type cinerary urn for then President Nixon.
Vicki’s first 45 years as an artist were as a professional dancer, choreographer, massage/dance therapist. Training with dance therapist pioneer Jane Brown.
In 2004 her studio/theatre was gentrified away and clay returned! At the age of 60, Vicki began to focus as a clay artist with her first professional submission to Santa Cruz Museum, and won People’s Choice Award in 2010.
Her award-winning work has exhibited extensively throughout the West and nationally, averaging 7 shows a year. She is honored to have exhibited at Horton Gallery, Epperson Gallery, Yosemite Museum Gallery, Crocker Art Museum, Blue Line Arts, Bedford Gallery, Transmission SF, Arc Gallery, The Artery, Verum Ultimum and Tennessee University to name a few of the 36 galleries who have exhibited her ceramic art.
She has been influenced by the funk ceramic period— Viola Frey, Arneson, Judy Chicago, Clayton Bailey, plus: Michele Gregor, Lisa Reinertson, Michelangelo…and sewing!
She is especially inspired by the no-waste complexity of nature and the clay itself.
Her home-studio is in East Oakland; where she and Peter, her partner in dance and husband of 52 years, raised two wonderful daughters.
Artist Statement:
My first image of One Nest, as a starving fledgling and human infant nested together, formed upon hearing of the Yemen famine in 2017 “the worst famine in the world in 100 years”. Its intent expanded and was finally created during COVID-19—nesting in lock-down.
I love birds…There visits thrill me in my garden of native plants, that attract the insects that thrill them. They won’t all make-it. They have to survive feral cats, pesticides in neighbors’ yards, droughts, floods and loss of habitat for the next nest. Yes, this piece is shaped like a STOP sign! Plastics (grocery ties here), climate crisis, are invading all life’s nests and food.
Native plants attract the most critical bird-baby-food, yummy, soft, caterpillars! The entire food web depends on insects for all who eat.
One Nest, from my Canary & Elephant Series, with its, yellow-canary-in-the-coal-mine, alerts us to different social and ecojustice issues. The challenge— the BIG choices we need to make to remove the profit-driven Elephants-in-the-Room.
I value clay’s infinite potential— mirroring our own!
I enjoy luring the viewer in with beauty to enchant us into guardianship.
I am currently creating work within three series:
- CANARY & ELEPHANT SERIES— Every piece in the series incorporates a yellow cautionary canary and helps expose the elephant in the room.
- ...IN EVERYTHING SERIES— DNA is in everything; evidence of the shared ancestry of ALL living things. Each piece in the series transforms into a DNA helix in unique ways.
- My NEW ERA SERIES was initially inspired by the murder of George Floyd, whose family wore white to his funeral to say, 'this is not and ending but a new era!'
I sculpt clay using: slab, solid, wheel and coil techniques. I research in the field, with curiosity, ruler, sketches, online and my own photos. I often make patterns. I paint with underglazes, stains and love finishing with beeswax as well as glazes. I often handwork and seamlessly attach copper and brass to clay. Improvisational surprises are always welcome.
One Nest – Canary & Elephant Series
clay, stains, underglaze, glaze, beeswax, plastic grocery ties
Fired to cone 5 oxidation– final finish =melted beeswax applied by brush and heat gun.
9” x 15” x 15”
2020
$2,500
Exhibition Season:
Visions in Clay 2023