The Lighter Side of Clay

A bespectacled young man flops casually in a chair, his leg draped over the arm, cushions askew, blowing some kind of horn. We can see his foot nestled against a small dog; we notice the slight crosshatching on his pants. The image is fun, yet you are aware of the concentration it takes to play music.

This is just one of the many fleeting moments Stephanie Osser captures in the earthy medium of clay.

In another piece, a chick pokes through and emerges from its shell, so downy and vulnerable looking that it’s hard to believe that the feathers are not soft to the touch.

Osser specializes in hand-building, which includes statues, tiles and murals. She also silk-screens images onto clay, illustrating the surface with lithe drawings of violinists or other musicians. As a singer with a piano playing husband, a son who plays the French horn and a daughter who’s an opera singer, many of Osser’s works have a musical theme.

It is her clay illustrations that fully combine all of Osser’s talents. Although clay has been her medium for the last 13 years, she came to it after a highly successful career as an illustrator.

Initially trained in graphic design at the Pratt Institute, Osser first encountered ceramics decades ago with teacher Stanley Rosen at Bennington College. She was “enchanted.”

“Never interested in the wheel or mass produced items,” Osser made one of a kind pieces, and she couldn’t see how that would translate into a profession, concluding that “clay was insecure for me as a way to make a living.”

She explains that “being able to draw was a skill I’ve always had” and she could support herself doing it. She began by illustrating masters thesis papers for science students at the University of Montana, going on hikes and drawing mountain goat shedding patterns and Native American flat arrow heads.

Her next job was staff illustrator at the New England Aquarium, for seven years, drawing fish and penguins, followed by doing illustrations for New York Times Sunday food section articles, which then launched a career as a cookbook illustrator.

Osser somewhat became a victim of her own success, and she began to tire of illustrating food. As she puts it, “When you’re good at something you get more of the same.” Also, with the advent of computers illustrating by hand was quickly going the way of the horse.

Courses at the Rhode Island School of Design brought her computer skills up to date, and then a ceramics course with Nancy Selvage at Harvard returned her to her original love, clay.

At Harvard, Osser found a community. She studied with Allison Newsome, Gala Sorkina, Kathy King and Shawn Panepinto, learning about figures, molds and “other techniques,” eventually becoming a resident artist with the Harvard program, a position she still holds.

In addition, she teaches and runs the Ceramic Studio at Babson College, in consortium with Wellesley College and Olin College, where she recently earned a grant for the students to construct a mural.

Osser explains what it means to turn the sculpted clay into a finished piece, a process that can take up to 14 hours. First the clay is heated in the kiln at 1,800 degrees, in what’s called a bisque firing. The bisque takes out all the water, and this makes what is called a quartz conversion, meaning that the clay changes its properties. Then, glaze is applied and the piece is fired a second time, at 2,100 degrees.

In Osser’s words, this process makes a piece “a thing of the earth.”

Yet, looking at Osser’s colorful works — the two faces joined in love, the smiling boy with the wavy hair on a tile — they depict the tiny moments of feeling that connect us with the stars.

At the , Osser will be joined by 3 other artists: Rich Flynn, Steve Negron and Pauline Webber.

The public is invited to celebrate the opening at a reception on Friday evening, May 11, Gaga Gallery, 254 Humphrey Street. The exhibition will run through June.