Sonya Popow

SONYA POPOW

I’ve had my hands in clay for more than fifty years. I was rigorously trained as a production potter, spending two years as an apprentice to Charles Counts in Appalachia, then studying with his teacher, Marguerite Wildenhain at Pond Farm Pottery in Guerneville.

In mid life I returned to graduate school and worked on a series of monumental sculptures. I enjoy making sculpture to fire in local atmospheric kilns.

Many of my sculptures have come from explorations of the plants in my garden with various lenses. Lately I’ve been inspired by whale vertebrae and the amazing shapes of bones. I always wander in pictures of pots and sculpture ancient and contemporary.

My wood fire pots are fired in either Leslie Campbell’s Albion/Aum Anagama or in Nick Schwartz’s Cider Creek Anagama. These Anagama kilns are fired entirely with wood for up to 7 days with a community of potters stoking  constantly  in 6 to 8 hour shifts. The pots may have a liner glaze, but the subtle ‘glaze’ on these pots is from the volatile atmosphere of the very hot wood fumes and ash in the kiln interacting with the clay body.

SHAPESHIFTERS  These small sculptures have no ‘right side up’. They can be hung, played with, turned and displayed in many directions. The series began as a symbolic Buddhist ‘mala’ of 108 prayer beds. Each piece is still made and fired with a quote from the Dalai Lama inside. During the firing process, the paper quote is burned but perhaps the energy remains or maybe you have some words of your own.
“My religion is kindness”  Dalai Lama

I hope for pieces that evoke some mysterious found object – a seed, a leaf, a shell, a bone. If I am successful the viewer will ask, “Where did you find it?” and, “Can I touch?

I continue to make medium fire (cone 5) functional pottery at my home/studio in Fort Bragg.

Call for a visit at my outdoor showroom -707-964-5128.