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My Ceramics

In the studio I like to do	Handbuilding, Throwing on the Wheel, Sculpting, Slip casting
Pottery Wheel	shimpo vl lite
Clay body	Earthenware, Stoneware
Clay Brand	Dakota Potter Supply's whitestone and black clay bodies for commercial clay. Architectural White from our local brick factory, and my own blend of wild clay
Kiln Type	Electric Kiln
Kiln Atmosphere	Oxidation Atmosphere
Temperature	04 bisque. Cone 5 or 6 for commercial clay. Usually cone 4 with my wild clay, although I do test each batch to see how hot I can take it
Glaze	I’ve dabbled in making my own glazes, but at this level in my career, I’m just fine with commercial glazes. I tend to do more brush glazing than dipping, I find that I like having that tighter control. Although I also really like the speed of just dipping my pieces!
You can buy my work from	our website is at http://www.bassackwardstudios.com. My work can be purchased by contacting me directly via email or by stopping in at my gallery and store. I tend to keep my work more up to date on my facebook profile, at https://www.facebook.com/glassackward

About Me

Introduction	My name is Gretchen. My husband and I have owned and operated BassAckward Studios for over 25 years. Both of us earned our AAS degrees in Commercial Art, back in the mid ’90’s before everything went digital! Kirk is an award winning tattoo & airbrush artist, which is our primary line of business. My role in our business has always been mostly administrative. As our children have grown, I have had more time to explore my own art.
What I Love about Ceramics	the malleability of the material is a big draw. I frequently have only a half-baked plan in mind, and usually let the clay tell me what it wants to become.
How I started with ceramics	Back in college in the early ’90’s I had to take a ” fine art course” to get my AAS in Commercial Art. The instructor was very hands OFF, it was basically “here’s the clay. here’s a wheel. have at it.” A few years after that class, I became friends with a potter in our small town and did some piecework for her, cleaning greenware and painting some basic color work on her line of slipcast mugs. Although our friendship didn’t end, that professional relationship was put on pause because raising our kids was such a full time thing. Now, 20+ years later, our youngest is a teenager and I thought taking private classes with my potter friend would be something fun for the two of us to do together. Within a few months that evolved into my becoming her apprentice.
What inspires me	Just working with an experienced potter has been what’s inspired me. Having her as a resource, to ask questions, try new ideas, and receive honest professional critiques of my work keeps me engaged and focused on improving my skills.
What I'm working on at the moment	Shifting back and forth between wheel work and hand building, just working on improving my work and pushing my limits. I’ve also been exploring working with local, native clay bodies . Knowing that I myself pulled that material from the earth and made it into something useful or beautiful is deeply satisfying
My Artist Statement	My art was sidelined for quite a few years while I was focused on raising our kids; now that they’re “mostly” grown, I now have time to re-explore my own work. Over the years, I have focused on portrait work and dabbled in many other media, but have spent the last few years working in kiln formed recycled glass. Right before the pandemic started, I started taking pottery classes with my teenage daughter as a means to spend more time with her and to divert her from too much screen time. These classes have evolved into an apprenticeship, which has re-ignited a passion for my art that was in danger of dying out. Shifting back and forth between kiln formed glass and ceramics is an absolutely natural progression. It’s really the same material. Just at different states of being. My glass work is exclusively post consumer glass; that might be bottle glass, it might be discarded architectural glass; it might even be vintage decorative glass pieces that have been relegated to the dust bin. A big part of the joy of my work is taking something worthless and bringing it a new existence. I’ve always had the compulsion to “make”. Limited materials to work with, whether that be from lack of funds to purchase “real” supplies, or the inaccessibility of those supplies, has never been an obstacle. My father was a bit of a packrat; he grew up in the Great Depression and never lost that ingrained behaviour of “salvaging.” That necessity to save every last bit of every thing, because those parts and pieces might be needed for something else. That behaviour became part of MY methodology, whether I wanted to be like that or not. Back when I was growing up, that salvaging mindset was seen as “what poor people do.” Now it’s seen as “innovative” and “ecologically mindful and responsible.” I’ve never seen myself or my work as either of those things. I just see potential in everything around me. It’s not born of some great desire to “save the Earth”, it just basic stewardship of the gifts that God has given us.
My CV	After earning my AAS in Commercial Art in 1994, I briefly worked in screen printing. Following the loss of my father, my husband and I moved back to my hometown, bought our first home, and found ourselves expecting our first child. Raising our children has always been front and center in our lives; my art career took a solid back-seat for 20 years. Now that our family is more or less self-sufficient, my highlights in my career are just starting. Discovering kilnformed glass was a huge highlight; my recent “re-discovery” of clay work is the other highlight of my art career. In 2022, we moved my husband’s tattoo studio into a newly renovated space in our hometown. This development has enabled me to have a gallery and store space to showcase my own work, offsite from my home production studio.