Studio Discovery Tour
Labor Day weekend & the weekend after
on the Sonoma / Mendocino Coast
September 5 - 7 and 12 - 13, 2009
Artists' studios open 10am - 5pm each day
Miriam Owen - Driftwood Sculpture | map #24 → |
All of my adult life has been spent in pursuit of refining my artistic
vision. I established my first pottery studio, Pescadero Creek Pottery, in
1974. I made functional pottery, high fired stoneware and porcelain;
cups, plates, bowls, teapots, vases. Each production cycle informed the
next. The process was a constantly evolving quest to make a perfect pot.
Much of my work fell far short of my ideal, but the discipline of the
pottery process and my 25 plus years immersed in pursuit of making that
perfect pot, gave me a strong aesthtic sensibility.
Since 1993, in a conscious shift to making art from found materials, my focus has moved from clay to using what I can find locally. I beachcomb on local beaches to find natural materials. My first efforts were what I call Kelp People. Kelp People are made with dried bull kelp for heads, their bodies are driftwood. They are pairs, anatomically correct under their skirts. I embellish them with beads, shells and talisman such as bone or stone carvings. These figures were reviewed in a juried show at the Mendocino Art Center, as 'shamanistic and playful'.
Guardians, free standing driftwood figures, came later. Recent efforts
are multiple figures that share a base and interact spatially.
New works this year are Driftwood Doodles, minimalistic pieces, some of
which are simply a piece of driftwood so suggestive of a figure, that it
stands alone on its wooden pedestal. Others have beach stones for heads
or simply some reeds wrapped with leather for head pieces. All are
embellished with beads and colorful leather.
I also make mermaids and merangels. A kelp head on a piece of driftwood with a sassy curve evolves into a spirit of the sea. When you visit my studio you also visit my flower garden, a 35 year work in progress. September is dahlia time, very colorful. I look forward to sharing my personal creative space with you.
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Contact Information:
Miriam Owen
Email: miriamo@mcn.org |