Valerie Seaberg

"Art-making has been a source of incredible joy in my life. I am often amazed at my good fortune to be doing the work of an artist. I am grateful for the way this work surprises and informs me and always leads me into the unknown. My intention as an artist and a person is to look at the world with curious eyes and to be guided by the natural intelligence of the creative process."

Wyoming artist Valerie Seaberg describes herself as an ocean child destined for mountain life. Her mixed media vessels are like great, tumbled beachcombing finds: undulating clay forms encircled by pine needles or horsehair. They are high country marriages between ancient ocean and raw land. Seaberg's works are muscular and sensual, conveying a deep sense of time, earth, and element.

Seaberg impresses her work with patterns from nature, rolling vases on trunks of trees or using fossils to decorate the surface of a piece. She likes the elemental nature of primitive firing: she buries her work in the ground and burns it for days to create distinctive surfaces. Onto her mixed-media vessels she weaves horsehair, pine needles, and other natural treasures she finds in her wanderings throughout North America.

Valerie Seaberg is mostly self taught. She is thankful to her early art teachers for letting her cut class to hide out in the art room and create as she pleased. She would like to thank Michael Sherill for the time spent at Anderson Ranch where he shared his passion for clay and his most excellent tools, which changed everything.