About The Artist
Artist’s Statement
“Art has taken many forms since those days. Many arts and crafts have won respectability among the aesthetic establishment. Content has changed to anti-content and every stage in-between. Art we once considered among the lowest in public taste has been accepted into museum collections – along with advanced experimentation.”
Adele had always believed that all art has certain requirements to have a lasting value and that this is true whether a work be abstract, realistic or experimental. In each case the principles of composition, positive and negative space, value and balance apply. Without an exciting and challenging use of these basic controls, no matter how revolutionary the work, it will be unpleasant to the viewer and unsuccessful as a work of art. Today many artists have deliberately ignored these basic tenets to challenge past patterns.
“Only time will decide whether they are successful as “Art”.
“I still feel the old division of “fine art” and “decorative” art to be valid. This can be in any medium. It is the depth of the work. Decorative art is simply that; to make a space more interesting to live with and changed if it becomes tiresome, such as wallpaper or fashion. Fine art must have a quality that lasts, that may actually increase in appreciation with exposure and have qualities that transcend time and culture, surviving against transient changes in taste. So, whatever the origin, if a work has ‘artistic merit’ it will survive time and cultural shifts, because our society, “man”, has certain innate tastes that remain unchanged – only the forms of expression evolve.”
Artist’s Motivation
“There is a joy in creating your own reaction to our physical, emotional and psychological world. Each of us sees our part of life with different eyes and with different personal reactions determined by our individual experiences. If we are gifted with abilities to do this, it is irresistible.”
In 1992 she said – “I have always felt that the role of the artist was to depict, in whatever medium, the feeling of his or her own time. As a creative thinker he or she would present, in a very personal way, facets of life that were important to him or her, and if the artist had the ability would present those facets to all mankind in a new, deeper, and clearer way. That the difference between “good” and “great” art was the multiplicity of creative input exemplified in the artist’s finished product whatever “Art” was chosen. A great work may be enjoyed again and again without becoming so familiar that boredom sets in. I have found that everyone’s taste in the arts changes and becomes more discriminating with exposure.”
There is a unique quality to clay that permits wheel throwing, hand building, casting and pressing, allowing an infinite variety of forms and expression. The various colors and temperatures and characteristics of clay permit painting, intaglio, embossing, and inlay, as well as the form selected. Glazes can be matte, gloss, or in-between; transparent or opaque, crystalline, reduced or oxidized, or any combination the artist can produce.
Working in clay is constantly challenging, creative and exciting. After much experimentation I selected hand-carved, hand-pressed faience tile as my favorite form. It permits low and high relief, textures, glaze combinations, unlimited techniques and design.
My sculpture has been both cast and hand-built, with and/or without glazes, abstract or figurative. All are equally challenging to me. I do not follow a “school” or “style”. Yet my work has always had a personal quality that collectors recognize. Part of that persona is using the ceramic materials involved to reveal, not hide, the unique characteristics of clay.
“As time has passed, some of the more athletic skills required for hand pressed tile were no longer possible for me. With appreciation of these physical changes, I sought to return to painting as a less strenuous technique. Through these paintings I produce my reflections of life as I see it - focusing on people, as I find them so interesting. Each painting has always been created to solve a specific problem as a stepping stone to moving on to another challenge.”