Victoria Christen

Call 4 Entries Artist List............ Currentshow Previous Shows	VICTORIA CHRISTEN OREGON

		I have been influenced by a variety of factors, including my family traditions and my physical environment. I come from a tradition of seamstresses. As a young girl, my grandmother designed and sewed clothing for families at neighboring homesteads. My grandmother's skills passed to my mother, who sewed all our family clothes, and then to myself. As a ceramic artist, my process is not so different than that of my mother and grandmother. Like them, I transform my ideas into patterns cutting, folding, and joining various pieces to create a physical object.


		The Badlands of Eastern Montana where I grew up have also influenced me as an artist. The landforms in Makoshika State Park near my home are rugged yet delicate full of unique shapes and colors that are ever changing with the passing sun, clouds, and season. It has influenced my love of color and of dramatic form. Construction In both earthenware and porcelain, I construct my pieces using components that have been thrown on the wheel. I put various components together loosely to make my pieces appear spontaneous and effortless, yet controlled.


		Glazing I When leather-hard, I paint the pieces using solid colored clay slips and commercial underglazes with black lines dividing and stitching together the different colored areas. After being bisque-fired to cone 6, I glaze them with either a clear gloss glaze or an amber transparent gloss glaze. Then the earthenware pots are fired in an oxidation (electric) kiln and the porcelain pots are soda-fired. Although I use many of the same colored underglazes with my porcelain as I do with my earthenware, the colors and pattern are more unpredictable when using the porcelain due to the soda-fired process.