"Cheryl Tall: Ceramic Sculpture", by Nancy DeCamillis

1. In what ways were art and culture a part of your childhood years?

In my family, we were always making things. With 4 children in the family, my mother had crayons, glue, scissors and paper around to keep us busy at the kitchen table while she was cooking dinner. We made doll clothes and doll furniture, holiday decorations, birthday gifts, and paintings to hang on the refrigerator.

My father was a carpenter and woodworker, my mother did crafts, sewing, painting and photography, my grandmother was a knitter, and my grandfather was a sign painter for businesses on the Atlantic City Board Walk.

As a child, I had a rich fantasy life. I saw inanimate objects such as rocks or furniture or trees endowed with spirit. I was convinced that my dolls had a life of their own and moved around at night. I was a daydreamer who spent hours doodling. Some of my early doodles are reminiscent of my present day Househead sculptures.

My fifth grade teacher included a letter of praise for my artistic abilities, sent home with my report card to my mother and she saved it. I was pleased with this encouragement, and worked even harder at my art.

2. How long have you been a working artist?

I have been selling my artwork since age 13, when I sold a linoleum block print to one of my teachers. When I was 18, I won a UNICEF contest, and my painting traveled around the world in a group exhibition. In my early 20’s, I studied art at University of South Florida, and sold some of the work I made in class. After graduation, I sold at outdoor art fairs, then through interior designs, and now through galleries. 3. Tell us about your training.

I first worked with modeled and fired clay in high school. I made puppet heads based on studies of medieval stone carvings. I attached these heads to cloth bodies that I had batiked.

I attended undergraduate school in my twenties. I studied painting and art education, and didn’t study ceramics at all. After graduation, I married and became the mother of three boys. I started taking wheel classes at the local clay guild in Miami. I loved it and ended up asking for things like potter’s wheels and extruders for Christmas presents. Soon I had enough work to enter the art festivals, such as the Coconut Grove Art Show.

My art work exhibited at these outdoor shows consisted of: Wheel work. "Face Mugs". Dioramas (small stage sets made of clay, with little figures inside them). Hand Built large vessels for interior designers. "Face Vases". Architectural forms. "Spirit Houses".

In 1990-95, I attended graduate school at the University of Miami, focusing on ceramics and sculpture. I also took classes in printmaking, painting, working from the figure model, art history, and computer art. I learned how to talk about, present, and document my work. This is when I started my present body of work, Househeads and Goddesses.

Since 1995, I have kept up my training by taking workshops from noted artists like Paul Soldner, Peter Voulkos, Judy Moonelis and Stephen de Staebler. I also attend an artist residency every year to experience a new environment, interact with other artists and have in depth ‘daydreaming’ time.

4. What is the most important characteristic of your art?

The pieces have a strong linear quality, caused by the horizontal lines created both by the pinching coil technique and also by the sectional dividing lines.

The sections were invented because I wanted to work large. I had tried other methods of working: 1. Working solid over an armature (but then I had to cast the piece or cut it open and hollow it out. 2. Making it hollow but all in one piece (but then I had to have 5 guys carry it). And 3. Working with slabs (but then I needed a form to place the clay in or around).

I also found beauty in the sections when they are spread out on the floor, waiting to be assembled. I imagined them 100 years from now. Maybe only one part would be left, reminiscent of Greek statues, and people would wonder what it was meant to be. 5. How do you bring life to your work?

By the use of larger scale, narrative content, and facial and figurative animation.

By making the sculptures large, I feel they have physicality about them, a presence. It’s like standing next to one of Jun Kuneko's large ceramic Dangos. It’s a way of creating my own environment.

And I think the narrative came as a reaction to all the minimalism, conceptualism and abstract expressionism I had been taught, and to all the works I had viewed named 'untitled'. My head was filled with stories and I wanted to evoke them in my work.

My favorite part is pinching out one of the faces. They are made layer by layer, spiraling upward and around and around like a contour line drawing. Going bump over the nose and lips, bulge over the cheeks. Each face takes on its own persona. They almost make themselves. The eyes are animated, and the lips are open, as if to speak.

6. What is your approach to a project?

I work in a series, so I will decide first if the form is to be a househead, goddess, tower, boat or couple. Then I dwell on the mood of the piece, influenced by recent study of some ancient tribe or my own travel to another country, or perhaps a personal experience that has had a deep effect on me.

Once the form is decided, I will make sketches, gather texture samples, and pin images to the bulletin board.

7. In what way has your work transformed over the years?

I went from puppet maker to abstract painter in my early years. I then designed and made vessels and dinnerware. From that I went to creating architectural forms in clay. And then to building large scale figures. My present work contains some aspect of all of those periods.

My present style evolved when I was a MFA student. I had been trying to be more minimalist with the house forms, and my work was getting very mannered and stiff. My sculpture professor, Ron Fondaw urged me to use softer clay and to loosen up – to throw it, slash it, let it become more visceral. This led to the pinched coil technique, and the bizarre proportions in the figures.

8. What or who is the source of inspiration for your work?

I was influenced by expressionist paintings, such as Matisse's portrait of Madame Matisse; the one where she had a green streak for a nose. I wanted to portray emotion. My colors were intended to evoke feeling rather than to describe nature. I enjoyed applying color in a loose fashion, blurring the boundaries between shapes, and trying to express the emotion of the piece.

I also studied Surrealism. In 1998, my work was chosen by curator Mary Morris for 'From the Dream to the Studio: Paintings and Sculpture of the Surreal', where it was shown with Giorgio de Chirico's paintings. Mary Morris describes surrealism as ' the blurring of the line between the conscious and the subconscious, the creation of a tangible view of a dream, however private and isolated and the ability to separate the deliberate, thoughtful presentation of an image, from the direct and free flow of association. The contemporary artists in the exhibit represent, for me, some of the most powerful aspects of surrealism: atmospheres of foreboding strangeness; deep images from childhood; the unique and ephemeral quality of dream space; infinite space; biomorphic forms; layering of time and space and the quality of disjunction and displacement'.

Mythology I enjoyed reading Greek myths and Grimes fairy tales, because the characters are larger than life; they are archetypal like Shakespeare and King Arthur. They give a framework to hang the story on.

Pop art I was fascinated by the playful witty objects created by Claes Oldenburg, Viola Frey and Robert Arneson, which mimicked familiar things in life like men in blue suits, typewriters and toilets.

Funk art Funk art started in northern CA with the work of Robert Arneson, Richard Shaw, William Wiley. They represent humor and autobiographical elements, political statements, incorporation of found materials. This movement helped transform clay from a crafts material to a sculptural one. This movement was active when I was a young artist in the 70's and I would watch the pages of Ceramic Monthly with amazement.

Current events. The work is journalistic about events in my personal life and also stems from a response to things that I observe and feel strongly about: pollution of nature, alienation, longing for emotional intimacy, the joy and pain of relationships, evolution, modern science and technology, obsessions with possessions, etc. Sometimes I feel like a time traveler, a medieval person gaping in astonishment at all the modern miracles and horrors taking place.

9. What are you working on at this time?

I’ve just completed two large pieces, “Big Boy”, a househead almost 4 1/2’ tall, and “Joan/Our Brides for Action”, a Robin Hood like figure with a sword, almost five feet tall. I’ve also been incorporating images of monkeys and gorillas into some of the Goddess pieces. I’ve been studying Darwin’s theory of evolution, and collecting articles about cloning, test tubes babies, and product testing on animals.

10. What challenges do you deal with as an artist?

Limitations of space, time and money. The daily life of an artist (wearing all the hats): Packing and shipping of work, pick up and delivery to exhibitions, finding enough computer time to make proposals and keep good records, finding new galleries, being a business person. Wanting to make big complex work yet needing to work within the physical boundaries of clay.

11. How do you deal with the business aspect of art? Do you work with galleries or other art representatives?

I have learned a lot more about the computer, because using email correspondence and jpeg images really speeds up my projects with galleries and collectors. I manage my inventory and exhibition proposals myself, and sometimes spend 3-4 hours doing this,

When I first started selling my work, I sold at the large scale Fine Art Street fairs in southern Florida, like the Coconut Grove art show in Miami. Now I send work to galleries, and sell out of my studio gallery.