Artist Elaine Walzl shows off one of her favorite pieces, one in a series of pottery bowls that started out with the same dimensions but were later shaped into unique designs.
Marcus Larson/News-Register

Marcus Larson/News-Register

Marcus Larson/News-Register

Marcus Larson/News-Register

Marcus Larson/News-Register

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By Septembre Russell
Of the News-Register

The ambiance of her work stands out from other locally created art and crafts work in a well-lit, studio-style gallery. Her affinity for gardening and flowers is unmistakable in the color and pattern of her work.

Her pieces certainly don't suggest their creator disliked art classes in high school, but that's actually the case with potter Elaine Walzl. Walzl, who grew up in Massachusetts, found them too rigid. "You were given instructions and you were supposed to follow them - exactly," she said. "Somehow or another, I would come up with something different.

"I was always told I was wrong. It was something I had to do, but I didn't enjoy it at all."

After high school Walzl earned a nursing degree at the University of Massachusetts. She worked as a nurse for a few years, then her husband's military service led them to Germany, where she discovered a local crafts shop offering sculpting opportunities.

"The moment I put my hands into clay, I felt something very different," Walzl said. "I loved it."

She had been conditioned to think she lacked artistic talent, and her first attempts at "throwing," the term used to reference shaping clay on a potter's wheel, seemed to confirm that. She produced bottom-heavy pieces reminiscent of doorstops.

But she didn't let her inexperience restrain her creativity.

"I was persistent, I was determined, I was going to do it," Walzl said.

She took some basic wheel-throwing classes, but was self-taught from there. Her staunch commitment guided her along the learning curve.

"It's a very long process to learn to throw on the wheel, to make everything just perfectly round and concentric," she said. "It takes years before you're consistently good at it."

When Walzl returned to the states, she also returned to school, studying art in California. When her husband's career took them back to Germany again, she spent 10 years running an arts and crafts center in Crailsheim, located about halfway between Stuttgart and Nuremberg.

"In 1989, we decided to move back to the states and I decided I was going to be a full-time potter," she said.

"There's just something about clay," she said.

"I do some painting, but that's not fun for me. I have to work at it.

"But clay, I just love manipulating clay. Its got all the right properties."

Incorporated into Walzl's work are wheel-thrown shapes, altered wheel-thrown shapes, hand-built shapes and shapes combining wheel-thrown and hand-built elements. The mix of techniques varies the style of her pieces and give them a unique twist.

Another artistic approach she uses is distortion. She uses a wooden paddle to ply the rounded edges, altering them and giving them distinct forms and shapes.

Walzl discovered texture as a focus after painting on smooth clay surfaces. Delighted, she strives to combine texture and painted patterns into her pieces.

"Form is important," Walzl said, "but color is the next thing."

She fires her clay works in an electric kiln, which can cause color glazes to appear solid and uninteresting.

To compensate, she said, "I am always searching for glazes that have lots of depth of color. As soon as I finish one piece, I start experimenting with more colors and come up with another palette of colors to work with."

Garden pieces are a portion of Walzl's repertoire. Their individuality comes from the infusion of clay elements combined with bent steel.

"A lot of people do garden pieces that are only made out of steel, because they can be outdoors," she said. But she said, "All of my clay pieces can be outdoors year-around."

Walzl teaches a basic hand-building class and a class focusing on Raku, a Japanese firing technique that uses smoke as well as fire.

"The motivation is just to have fun with clay in a different way, with a new technique which is just so fun to do that everybody's enthusiasm spills over," she said.

Walzl is the featured artist this month at Currents Gallery, a fine art cooperative at 532 N.E. Third St. Her work will be on special display until June 16, but will remain available for sale after that date.

For more information, call the gallery at 503-435-1316.