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Amy Elswick
"One of the things I like best about being a working artist is that I get to indirectly take part in other people's lives. I love that a bowl, a mug, or a wall piece becomes part of someone's home, a part of their daily and/or special rituals. I like that my spirit can live on without me being there."
Amy always had a creative streak, but it was when she found clay that it actually came to life. She worked in the student pottery while at Berea College in Kentucky. The program encouraged aspiring artists and instructed them in how to make a living from their creativity. While working at Berea, she refined her skills on the potter's wheel and developed functional pieces that were sold by the college's craft marketing program. The next step in her artistic and professional development was to work for a sculptural art studio where her handbuilding skills were put to use in creating unusual animal and figurative work. Now, she is working to include all those learned techniques in her current work, and to find a balance of creating functional work with a sculptural edge.
Amy works with stoneware clay bodies and mixes all her glazes by hand in her studio. She creates her work both on the wheel and using slab building techniques. She manipulates the surface to cut, carve, scratch, and rip in order to achieve various textures and patterns, never content to leave a pot alone. These surface textures and the forms they follow give her work its distinctive qualities.
Amy graduated from Berea College in 1991. She has been working as a full time artist since 1998 creating her line of functional and decorative ceramics. She has attended numerous workshops since college, and her work has been shown across the nation. She resides in Louisville, KY with her husband and furry feline brood. Her current studio is in an historic 1890's era building near the downtown arts district.
Amy always had a creative streak, but it was when she found clay that it actually came to life. She worked in the student pottery while at Berea College in Kentucky. The program encouraged aspiring artists and instructed them in how to make a living from their creativity. While working at Berea, she refined her skills on the potter's wheel and developed functional pieces that were sold by the college's craft marketing program. The next step in her artistic and professional development was to work for a sculptural art studio where her handbuilding skills were put to use in creating unusual animal and figurative work. Now, she is working to include all those learned techniques in her current work, and to find a balance of creating functional work with a sculptural edge.
Amy works with stoneware clay bodies and mixes all her glazes by hand in her studio. She creates her work both on the wheel and using slab building techniques. She manipulates the surface to cut, carve, scratch, and rip in order to achieve various textures and patterns, never content to leave a pot alone. These surface textures and the forms they follow give her work its distinctive qualities.
Amy graduated from Berea College in 1991. She has been working as a full time artist since 1998 creating her line of functional and decorative ceramics. She has attended numerous workshops since college, and her work has been shown across the nation. She resides in Louisville, KY with her husband and furry feline brood. Her current studio is in an historic 1890's era building near the downtown arts district.
