Carol works in several distinct areas of ceramics which keeps her work exciting and challenging – from hand-painting tiles and mosaics, creating functional stoneware pieces for everyday use, to making more decorative work with smoke fired forms or experimenting with building cement sculptures and doing horsehair raku firings.
She has become best known now as the Horsehair Raku lady because of the animal hair pottery she enjoys doing most. Horse hair is most commonly used, but she has also tried bear, moose, sheep, porcupine, elk, people hair and several types of dog and cat hair on her pottery and tiles. She will accept custom orders to use your pet’s hair making it very personalized for you.
Carol works out of her ceramic studio and gallery space called Clay Potential Pottery, located on Main Street in the small rural town of Riddle, Oregon. Since moving to Oregon and becoming a shop owner in 2007, she has become a founding member and president of the Riddle Art Guild, is an active member of the Riddle Chamber of Commerce, and the Umpqua Valley Art Association and now Clayfolk.
She started her art career and college education in San Diego, CA where she studied under Dr. John Conrad at Mesa College and later worked as his lab assistant. For six years in the 1990’s she served as president of Ceramic Artists of San Diego and operated her own pottery and tile design business. She was also a member of the San Diego Potters Guild and served on the board of directors for the Spanish Village Art Center for 16 years. She was voted by fellow San Diego artists as one of the top mentors and honored in 2003 at the “San Diego Potters and their Mentors” show held in Balboa Park in San Diego.
Carol’s work in pottery and tiles has been seen in several galleries and shows nationwide. She has received numerous awards from various shows through the years. Private commissions for custom tile murals have come to her through a diverse clientele from Beverly Hills mansions to making tile murals for a public art commission. She now spends half of her time creating new work and the other half teaching classes to all ages at her studio and in the public schools. Now, as a teacher, she takes delight in watching her students’ first experiences in creating art from a lump of clay.
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