Valerie West earned a B.F.A from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1993, concentrating in ceramic and fiber arts. While attending V.C.U., she participated in student exhibitions at The Anderson Gallery and 1708 Gallery. Following graduation as a new mother, Valerie taught art classes at the Hand Workshop, Collegiate’s After-School House, St. Catherine’s School’s Creative Arts Program, and The Richmond Children’s Museum. Throughout her daughter’s preschool years, she taught ceramics and exhibited her pottery at the Jewish Community Center. With increasing adult responsibilities and new full time management employment, the following years’ artistic endeavors consisted mainly of elaborate Halloween costume creations, scrapbooks filled with family photos, quilts made from the fabric of an only child’s outgrown wardrobes, and craft activities for every season: priceless times spent with her daughter, Zena.
Home improvement projects followed as the next craft outlet, with most of the design and construction work accomplished in a team effort with her husband, Craig. Presently, with a renewed focus on ceramic arts, Valerie West is hand-building wheel thrown pottery forms in her herb garden studio with the tree frogs that appeared shortly after her workshop became functional. Selections of recent work have been included in The Willow Brook Fitness Studio Art Exhibition in Charlottesville, Virginia, juried shows at Artworks Gallery, the Gallery 5 gift shop, St. Stephen's Farmer's Market and Mayfair House, and a solo exhibition at Artemis Gallery in Richmond, Virginia.
Building Process & Artist Statement
Simply put, I play with clay and get lost in the medium. To elaborate, I take the basic ideas behind traditional pottery techniques: throwing, trimming, pulling and attaching handles; then build the pieces together into unconventional shapes pushing the balancing ability and elasticity of the clay to turn functional vessels into nonfunctional forms. It starts with damp mounds of clay; dirt, given a name like Stoneware. After the air bubbles are wedged out, the clay is centered on the potter’s wheel. There is something primitively wonderful about the feel of the wet clay spinning on a wheel… And feeling the center and the balance; and the exponentially destructive reaction of the clay if the center becomes off balance… Then the clay mound is thrown into cylindrical shapes resembling bowls and vases Using the same techniques and the same centrifugal force that humans from all historic civilizations have used to form the same shapes, and feel the same way I do. It’s reassuring to feel so connected to history and the earth in such a simple way while our society seems to be spinning into a complicated, technological frenzy. The next step requires controlled hardening of the individual pieces, by allowing a slow evaporation of the moisture in the clay without letting it get bone dry in order to fasten the pieces together, form spouts, and fasten handles. Usually the finished product is not a duplication of the initial sketch. If I’m committed to replicating an idea, I’ll work on 2 pieces at once-one for me and one for the clay to take me where it wants to go because I get consumed by the shapes of the thrown work, the elasticity of the clay, and how I’m feeling at the time of creation. It’s as if the clay itself contributes to the creation so that the completed form is a collaboration between the artist’s intentions and the medium’s response. Once completely dry, the “greenware” is bisque fired in a kiln to over 2000 degrees. Glasslike finishes of bold colors and metallic finishes are achieved by applying 2 coats of high fire glaze which I partner with unpredictable blends of earth and ocean tones by layering up to 5 coats of different glazes (and then re-fire).
It’s always magical opening the kiln after a glaze firing!
