Biography
I was born in 1944 and grew up in San Francisco where my mother carved and embellished porcelain greenware and china painted in our dining room. I began drawing and painting as a child.
Although I majored in art in college, I am for the most part self-taught as a ceramic artist. I graduated from Dominican College of San Rafael, CA in 1966 where I studied painting, but fell in love with clay. After graduating I bought a wheel and a kiln and set about becoming a proficient potter. In 1970 I met my husband, artist Bill Abright, who was then going to San Francisco State and studying with David Kuraoka, Stephen DeStaebler, and Bud McKee. We found ourselves immersed in the exciting world of 1970s Bay Area ceramics.
Bill pursued sculpture while I continued to make my living as a production potter for many years. In 1978 I shifted from production stoneware to working in porcelain, making small one-of-a-kind sculptural containers, boxes and bottles, lusciously colored with underglazes and china paints. I exhibited and sold the work through galleries nationally. An invitation from Dorothy Weiss, in whose San Francisco gallery I had shown for many years, to be part of a teapot show was my entry into the realm of the teapot as sculpture. It is a genre I continue to explore. My current work moves fluidly between the teapot as sculpture and trompe l ‘oeil still life.
I’ve been influenced and inspired by many artists throughout my years of working in clay. Some of them are: Kathryn Mc Bride, Annette Corcoran, Richard Shaw, Richard Notkin, Patty Warashina and Marilyn Levine. This list continues to grow.
I am a two-time recipient of Marin Arts Council Individual Artist Grants. My work is exhibited nationally and my sculptures are in many private collections and museums. Images and reviews of my work have been published in numerous books and magazines.
Bill and I share a spacious, light filled studio built under our hillside home in San Anselmo, CA. We have two sons, Oben Abright, a glass sculptor, and Guston Abright, a painter.