Author: La Mano

The work of Kate Burns will be featured in the La Mano gallery this month. Join us for the reception on 4 June from 6-9 or stop by throughout the month of June.

 

About the Artist

Kate Burns is an international traveler and who has made La Mano her second home. Her gardening skills have brightened up the front of our studio. Kate came to La Mano just over three years ago and through pottery has found a new passion. In a stressful job at the United Nations working on responding to emergencies due to conflicts or natural disasters, Kate finds pottery an escape. This is Kate’s first show at La Mano. You will see a variety of pots from platters to demi-tasse cups, wall pockets to vases.

Kira, Matias & Gil Santiago

The work of Kira, Matias and Gil Santiago will be featured in the La Mano gallery from April 5–April 30. Please join us on Saturday, April 9, from 6–9pm for the artists' reception.

Kira Santiago has been “playing” with clay for years; first with her potter aunt Almut at the Cold River Pottery and then at LaMano Pottery.  She has published an artist journal on Clay.  Kira has won numerous City, Regional and National Awards for photography, painting, drawing, sculpture and ceramics.  She is currently attending the Beacon High School.  Her other interests include learning ASL and becoming a certified interpreter by the time she graduates high school; and the flying trapeze, where her goal is to be their first female catcher at trapeze school NY (TSNY).

Matias Santiago has also been “playing” with clay for a number of years; both at his aunt’s pottery and at LaMano.  He has won Regional and National Awards for both photography and ceramics.  In September he’ll be starting high school at High School for Math, Science & Engineering at City College.  His interests are computer, Warhammer, and reading just about anything he can get his hands on.

Gil Santiago has also “played” on and off with clay for years.  Only recently getting back into it while taking classes with his children at LaMano pottery.  He has a degree in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute, and his Masters in Architecture from Columbia University; and is currently an instructor at Pratt Institute

All of our feelings about clay are well described by this quote from Kira’s book Clay and Artist Journal:

Clay is a beautiful mud, before the fire’s touch turns it into stone.  You can make it dance and spin, telling it what you want from it with your hands.  When you do pottery for years, your hands pretty much have their own brains for doing the same technique over and over again.  Clay is not patient of the wheel, you can only use it once and then it’s over.  It becomes something for the fire or something for the clay bin.  On the wheel, the clay is forever moving each time your skin touches it.  It’s like you are giving the clay a massage and the clay is massaging your hands as you both share space and time on the Wheel. With hand building the clay is much more patient than with the wheel.  It is still on your skin as you touch it.  When I have finished a shape on the wheel or a piece by hand, I stop to look at it.  Sometimes, when I make a piece, I would be so focused on the hard pars that I might forget an eye, nose, or some other detail that would bring the clay to life.  If it looks good, I sometimes feel like a goddess.

Julie Schulweis Hadley’s bowls and other work will be featured in the gallery throughout March. Please join us for the closing reception on Saturday April 2, 6–9pm.

Julie's website »

Artist’s Statement
Being an owner, operator, and teacher at La Mano Pottery for over ten years has provided me with an environment more conducive to creating art than when I was in fine art school for painting. I look forward to the moments that I spend at the studio, able to immerse myself in the medium of clay, as well as the carving and decorating of it. It transports me to other places and provides the space and time for me to let down my guard and take a breath.

All of my pottery is about letting go, loosening up, relaxing, finding, refining and redefining my inner self. As an adult, I feel my childhood was too short, went by too quickly—and I became increasingly tight with my art. At the beginning, I was very concerned with making the perfect round bowl. Now, after twelve years of potting, I am finally able to make the perfect bowl that is not perfectly round, know when it is finished, and know that less is more.