By Jonathan Burger, Craven Arts Council & Gallery, Inc.
Rebecca Shelby has been working in clay and sculpting with it most of her life. Her undergraduate degree is in dance, but when she wasn’t in the dance studio she was in the ceramic studio at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She was trained by Setsuya Kotani, a wonderful Japanese ceramic artist. For a time, she explored other mediums, primarily bronze and concrete, while pursuing her MFA at UNCG. Eventually she returned to her first love, clay, and began working in community pottery studios. A couple of years ago she was able to convert a run down workshop into a first rate ceramics studio at her home.
Where are you from and what’s your background as an artist? How did you get into the arts?
I am a native North Carolinian, born in Chapel Hill but grew up in Carbondale, Illinois. My Dad worked at Southern Illinois University as a Medieval history professor, his specialty was architecture and that is how I got into the arts. When I was a teenager he took the family to Europe for the summer so that he could do research for his book. I was introduced to so much art and architecture, but a couple of pieces stand out as particularly impressive. The Pantheon in Rome was incredible to me, that it was built almost 2,000 years ago and has been in continuous use. A round building with a dome on top, which is huge, nearly half the length and breadth of a football field, it is cavernous, and a perfect sphere could fit inside of it. The other piece, this will be no surprise, was Michelangelo’s David. I credit that piece with being my first aesthetic experience. When I walked into the space I was astounded by the magnitude and beauty of the piece. Thirteen feet tall is way larger than life size, and the perfection of it, just blew me away. The art seeds were planted! I was also a dancer, since I was five, so eventually went to college and got a BFA in Dance with a minor in art, and most of that in ceramics. A few years later I went back to school and got an MFA in Sculpture. Both of my degrees are from UNC-Greensboro.
When I graduated I got a teaching job at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. I’ve been on the art path ever since!
You teach ceramics at Craven Community College, Is there anything you’ve learned from teaching others that you’ve been able to incorporate into your creative process?
Teaching is always about learning! It makes me think about technique a lot, because I’m trying to explain to the students not only the “what to do”, but the “why to do it that way”. At the beginning of the semester I always tell the students that clay is easy to work with but difficult to master. What I mean by that is that for me, I am always pushing the boundaries of what clay likes to do. Light, thin pottery is desirable, but if it chips and breaks easily in handling, you’ve gone too far. Attaching pieces together, again, you need a good solid connection so they won’t fall apart, so will a bunch of little spots connect something as well as one big long seam? These are the technical ideas that I bring from teaching into my studio.
Is there one theme to your work, or do have several you work with different pieces on?
There is a theme to my work, present since I was in graduate school, but it manifests itself in ways that don’t always seem readily apparent.
I’m a gardener and plant lover and am fascinated with how little blobs of plant cells know how to make such fantastic forms. Nearly everything, plant and animal, begins its life with a spiral growth pattern that evolves into its recognizable form. It is one of the structural building blocks of life. In clay, there is a spiral every time I sit down to the potter’s wheel and throw something. Many of my clay sculptures have a spiral or many spiral forms included. Like plants, a rose does not look the same as a hibiscus, and the same is true of my work. My coffee mugs have a spiral at the end of the handle but it doesn’t look much like the spiral of one of the underwater plant sculptures that I have made. They both come from that fascination with that building block of life.
Are there any jobs your held outside the arts that you think have contributed to your artistic practice?
I’ve been teaching art for 30 years and have really enjoyed it. Prior to that was high school and college jobs like cashier and waitressing.
What I learned from that is what I didn’t want to do and I totally appreciate how hard folks in those jobs work. Being a parent is an unpaid job, but raising my daughter, making art with her as she grew up, was a lot of fun and now she is good at giving me feedback as I work on a new piece. She has a good eye. You reap what you sow!
Ceramics is definitely a multistep process. Which step do you enjoy the most?
Ceramics is definitely multi-step and can be multi-frustrations as well. My favorite step is opening a finished glaze kiln and seeing that my piece that took months to make and glaze has survived the two firings and is still in one piece! Until that moment, I can’t get attached, because there is the chance that something will go wrong. I love all the processes, be it throwing or hand building or glazing. If I didn’t, I don’t think I could stand to do this. I’m always taking risks, doing things with clay that “you’re not supposed to do”, but if done with a lot of “engineering thought” then usually works. It is what keeps me going back to the studio, to try the next idea.
You do both functional production pottery and one of kind sculptural ceramics. What is the relationship between those lines of work, and how separate are they in your mind?
I have straddled the ceramic fence between sculpture and functional pottery for a long time. I used to think I had to choose a path between the two and take one but I could never decide on which to give up. I love making things that people enjoy using, including myself. There is just something wonderful about wrapping your hands around a steaming cup of coffee in a handmade mug. For me, the sculptural forms were born out of the tradition of the vessel. In particular, I love the ancient Japanese Jomon period of ceramics. They hand built these fabulous, ornate vessels that could have been for ceremonial use, we don’t really know the purpose. I see my sculptures as following that line of thinking, originally born as functional but developing over time into something that was “ceremonial” or used as sculpture because the aesthetics became more important than the function. I think people get that about my sculptures, because I do get asked, “what would I use that for?” They see the relationship to function, but it looks too ornate to be a fruit bowl! I tell them they could put fruit or seashells in it, but I think it can be enjoyed on its own, with no function other than pleasing to the eye.
Is there any award, exhibition, or specific piece that you’re particularly proud of, and why?
Interesting question. I’m always pleased when I win an award and enjoy talking with the juror to hear what they saw in the work. It is a wonderful motivation, but that is not what drives me into the studio or steers the next piece. I always feel like what I am working on at the moment is the best piece I’ve done. Or at least I hope it will be. I’m hoping that everything I have learned and lived through, successes and disappointments, will inform and improve my art. If I had to pick just one thing, I would say it was my MFA Thesis Exhibition at the Cone Museum in Greensboro, because at that moment I got that acknowledgement that yes, I am an artist, and yes, you can do this. And I have been doing it ever since!
Is there another artist in your field or another art medium that inspires you or whose work you admire?
There is a lot of artists and art that tugs at my aesthetic heartstrings. Roots are strong, and I remain absolutely fascinated by Gothic cathedrals. They are some of the craziest things humans have ever built. Modern engineers have plugged data into computers about these stone behemoths and the computer spits out that it can’t be done. Yet, 800 years later, most are still standing. Built with geometry and hubris, impressive! I’m grateful to artists like Marry Cassatt for poking holes in the glass ceiling of “only men make real art” and Judy Chicago, who lead the way to art about women and by women being equally valid art in the art world. In terms of pure form, Martin Puryear is a sculptor I really enjoy. It is work that has to be experienced, due to the scale, that just doesn’t translate to images in books or the internet.
Do you have any advice for other artists pursuing their work or a career as an artist?
Being an artist is a lifestyle, it’s bigger than a job. The art world will not come knocking on your door, looking for the next thing you do.
You have to push yourself out there. That is sometimes hard for artists to do. It is easy to get distracted with a million and one other things that need doing. Including how to make money to support your art as you get started. My days are generally divided into three chunks. Gardening for health and pleasure in the mornings, during the gardening season.
Studio time gets the next chunk and teaching has the other third of my time. I am learning to say No to things that pull me away from what I want to do as an artist. Keep it simple, keep it focused. And show up to opening receptions and art events, you are your best sales person. Have goals, big ones and little ones, without them, where are you headed?
Your work in on display in the Pottery Vault at Bank of the Arts, is there anywhere you’re currently showing at or will be in the near future?
I just delivered some work to the Arts of the Pamlico in Washington, NC. They are closed for renovation, but have a satellite location in Bath, which just opened up. I’m planning to go see the new location very soon, Bath is a great little town to visit! COVID has made things more challenging, but there are lots of creative people working behind the scenes to keep artist venues open, and I keep participating where and when I can!