Work from some of my students and some new pottery from me!

I wanted to post some of the work being done by my students in the art classes I teach both at the Benson Center in Sandy Springs as well as the Woodstock Community Center. I had 3 students enter work in "Art of the Golden Age". This was a juried show for people over 50 and is being shown at the Cobb/Marietta Art Museum. Go by and check it out!


Juana Giles
Juana has been painting with me for the past 5 years and does pieces along the line of this painting of places and people. Most of her subject matter is about other cultures or the blending of foreign with American culture.


Joy Potter
Joy has always been interested in painting portraits and slice of life scenes like this one. She has become a very solid painter and taken on some commission work.





Cate Dodd

Cate got two pieces accepted to the show, each of which are wonderful on their own. Her work has also gotten some very favorable responses from all of you on Facebook. I'll make sure to pass on your comments to her.


The following portrait sculptures are from my class at the Benson Center in Sandy Springs. I had a small class of 7 to start with and each student produced an almost life size bust of someone close to them. Each bust took quite a bit of time and I feel each of these students were successful in capturing their subject. Not bad work for the first piece of sculpture any of them had made!


Doris Brassfield. Bust of her niece.


Rosemary Dashiell, "Wilson" her nephew.



Mugsy Cole "Penny" her husband!

I've been having fun teaching the classes at the Benson Center but I've also had the opportunity to work in clay for the first time in over 30 years. I've always loved and collected pottery as well as sculpting but haven't kept it up due to space limitations as well as time. Finally I get to play in the mud again! The following are pieces I've made in the past month or so.


This group of pottery are pieces I've produced as samples for my hand-building class. My skills need a bit of work still but it's coming back to me slowly. The pieces to the right were made using the coil method and the ones on the left were made using the slab method. I teach techniques like creating stamps and textures for surface decoration as well as combining glaze methods to create interesting and organic forms and surfaces.




Sculpting has always be of keen interest to me and in particular figurative and portrait sculptures. This is a small demo sample to show students how to model a bust and finish the surface. The look is rather classical so I added a dark bronze finish to the surface of this clay sculpture to reinforce that idea.



On the far less traditional side is this fellow! I teach students in the Adult Day Care Program at the Benson Center. I was asked to head the project of creating a scarecrow to be shown at the Atlanta Botanical Garden this October. The participants suffer from a wide range of cognitive and physical limitations but by working together were able to complete this very involved and extensive project. I created the face out of clay by draping a slab into a bowl till it set up and was rigid enough to be worked on. I added the features of the face by building clay up on the surface and where needed cutting openings in the clay shell. I then drew in the lines to show were the color breaks would be. The participants painted the face and even added glitter. Glitter always makes everything better, right!