Today on the Tales of a Red Clay Rambler Podcast I have an interview with Shalene Valenzuela.
I have an interview with Shalene Valenzuela....
Porcelain Perfect
Ceramicist Shalene Valenzuela's art often begins not in her studio but out in the real world.
There, she hunts through thrift shops for discarded domestic objects whose forms, connotations, and mysteries suggest something to her about how a past we wish would remain in the past continues to bedevil us to this day.
At first glance Shalene's art seems humorous, joyous even: scenes of women with ruby red lips, expertly applied eyeliner and plucked eyebrows, hair in short bobs, the occasional bouffant, or with some remarkable bangs.
These women, engaged in evocative doings, decorate the surface of what appear to be toasters, vacuums, and other tools of the traditional housewife's trade.
"Shalene is so witty, and her work is so surprising," says Renee Brown, a Missoula, Montana, ceramicist with a very different style who once shared a studio with Shalene.
"It just invites you in, and it surprises you."
Shalene&