Albany Arts Gallery is Featuring Wood-Fired Ceramics by Jane Anderson

Albany Arts Gallery is having an opening Saturday February 1st from 6pm-8pm featuring Wood-Fired Ceramics by Jane Anderson of the Apple Gate Valley in Southern Oregon.  Jane's pottery will be on display at Albany Arts Gallery through the month of February.  

Jane Anderson is drawn to clay's flexibility and resilience.  She loves its ability to capture human character with its perfections and imperfections, as well as, its willingness to be worked and reworked, dried, vitrified, used, maybe loved, and/or cracked up.  Presently, she sees her ceramic pieces as recycled remnants of life, like driftwood on a beach, boulders on a hill, beliefs in an old spiritual practice, or relics unearthed from a primitive society,   

 While doing graduate work at the University of Hawaii, Jane began her study of sculpture and ceramics.  Conveniently the art building stood right across the way from the English Department where she studied and taught.  Over the years Jane has taught in Hawaii, Italy, Sri Lanka, Ohio, and Oregon while also practicing ceramics in various studios along the way.

 Twenty years ago, Jane settled down on Woodland Sun, an 80 acres homestead on the edge of the Applegate Valley in Southern Oregon.  She and her family live in a solar powered home. Wood harvested from their property heats her studio; solar charged batteries power her wheel; rain water collected off her studio roof moistens her clay and helps her clean her tools; and the  heat of the sun in her greenhouse and garden dries many of her ceramics.

 In the last year, Jane has sought out opportunities to wood-fire her pieces with the  hope of eventually helping to build a community wood-fire kiln in Southern Oregon.  In researching this possibility, she has fired with Hiroshi Ogawa in Elkton, Oregon; Jason Hess at the Northern Arizona University, and Susan Roden of Oakland, Oregon.  Most of the pieces in this showing have been wood-fired.  Some in an anagama and noborigama kiln, others in a train, catenary, and hybrid propane/wood kilns.

 According to Jane, her studies, homes, friends, and mindfulness practice have helped shape her present direct, loose, and primal style..