Page 14 - the NOISE December 2012

14 • DECEMBER 2012 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us
contInueD from 13
A detail of Rhonda Davis’ humanistic masks, part of the artist’s showcase at the ACF Gallery.
International Restaurant this December and will be part of the Flagstaff First Friday ArtWalk.
ragINg CLaY
“My pieces that will be on display at the Artists’ Coalition of Flagstaff’s Gallery this December will be primarily high fired crystal- line glazed porcelain pottery, sculptures and masks; thrown forms, some of them altered, and Raku fired humanistic styled masks.” ACF member Rhonda Davis tells me. “My glazes are mixed from chemicals and minerals from scratch. I use a high fired porcelain clay body with a little grog, as well as added precious crystal rocks onto pots after they are fired.”
“The name of my clay studio is ‘Raging Clay,’” she says. “I have been making masks for the past twenty years. My masks used to look like raging, angry, screaming faces and now they look like calm, singing Shamans. My pots are usually altered in some fashion, with crystalline glazes, or Raku fired surfaces.”
“My inspiration comes from human emotions and the hope and recovery of a saner state of mind,” Ms. Davis continues. “My crystalline glazed pots go back to the Ghost Ranch, in Abiquiu, New Mexico, and my love of Georgia O’ Keeffe. I took a work shop there one Summer and it changed my style forever. My creative processes involve both thrown forms, as well as hand-built slab masks. I love texture on my masks and pots. It is truly impossible for me to leave a pot round without pinching it some- where or roll out a slab of clay without using a piece of old leather or lace.”
I first knew Ms. Davis as the ceramics instruc- tor at Flagstaff High School, where she taught
for 25 years. As a freshman, there was still a plethora of fine art classes being offered, but by my senior year, art classes had been cut to one art and one ceramics class a year. Thank- fully at that time there was still the option to use an elective to be an independent study, and Ms. Davis gave a few other seniors and I the chance to deeply explore mediums of our choice. She gave guidance and feedback and the much needed space to let our creative en- ergy be channeled onto the canvas, into a ce- ramic form or whatever our artistic pursuit may have been.
“I loved teaching ceramics, it was my passion,” she says. “After the remodeling of the high school, the art department was torn down, and teachers laid off. We were reduced down to just me teaching all of the mediums. It was frustrating due to the high demand, over- crowded classrooms, small space, and lack of support by our administration. The interest in the arts by students and parents is remark- able, but the school district is not supporting art and music education like they should. The programs have all been cut down. Students do not get enough time in the fine arts. The district now considers industrial arts, web page design, and computer graphics a fine art. So I retired and I’m pursuing my dreams through my own creativity.”
“Presently I’m working on a series of masks that pertain to love and relationships,” Ms. Da- vis says. “I have been combining more than one character together to form an intertwined image, and then creating negative space from the two images connected.”
You can meet Ms. Davis and view her art dur-