Lisa Townley - Interstellar Ceramics

I received my B.S. degree in Anthropology/Zoology in 1993, but instead of continuing on to graduate school to study primates or genetics, I took some time off to work in an art gallery. A few years later I moved to Denver and set up a home pottery studio, and the next thing I knew 14 years had gone by!

The current direction of my artwork melds ceramics with the two things that have influenced much of life: marketing and the sciences. The process involves the application of custom-designed decals, then a third firing to permanently bond the decal to the surface of the work.

Like so many potters, I consider Japanese ceramics to be a major influence on my art: each piece is hand made with much attention to detail even though the designs are simple. My style is also partly a result of studying painters such as Rothko, Albers and Gottlieb, who were making statements with bold colors rather than texture. I grew up watching lots of cartoons, which has greatly influenced my sense of color. Lately, I've been getting a lot of inspiration from promotional brochures from publicly traded companies (i.e. stock market annual reports) and science textbooks.