Helen Phillips is currently represented by the L.Ross Gallery
Helen Phillips,
Thank you so much for letting me have this opportunity to interview you. Here are a couple of questions that I have for you. Please respond to the best of your abilities. They can be short or long answers anything will be extremely helpful. Once again thank you so much for helping me.
Sincerely,
Lena Kirk
1. When were you born and where were you raised? Does this have any influence on the art that you make today?
2. What was your first career ambition? Were you always interested in the arts?
3. Where were you educated? BFA, MFA, etc.
4. What did you do right after you graduated college?
5. When did you decide that art was the right career field for you?
As a fellow ceramicist what inspires your work, and how does that play into your building methods?
Do you keep a sketchbook?
How often are you making art? Is it your full time job?
Do you use your art to make a living?
Have you participated in any residencies? If so which ones, and why did they appeal to you.
Do you have any advice for a soon to be BFA graduate?
Dear Lena:
I would like to answer your question in a conversational manner. I hope this works for you. If you need and further information; or if I missed something please contact me again.
I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1938. When I was eight months old we moved to Evansville, Indiana and when I was three we moved to Union City, Tennessee. A year or so later we moved out to a farm (my father had a livestock business) for a few years. I loved being outside. I loved having two dogs, numerous cats, a pet goat, pet pig and pet chickens ( the only reason she would be my pet is that she was blind). When I was in the third grade we moved back in town but I continued to spend much time outside and lots of time riding my bike out into the countryside. Nature has a great impact on me and my work. Much of my inspiration comes from the beauty I see around me here in the countryside. Whenever I visualize myself as a child its always in the outdoors. The aspect of clay work I most love is just the physical act of working with "dirt." The colors and textures of rocks, leaves, bark are something I strive to incorporate in my clay surfaces. Whenever I can, I work outside and my studio opens up to the outside so I can easily fire my raku pieces.
I was always interested in arts. My father's sister was an artist. My older sister spent time with me, painting and making things. I was encouraged to draw and received a lot of attention because of my work. I used to laugh and say that I had a hard time forgiving my parents for not living in Memphis so I could attend Saturday School at the Art Academy. Years later cleaning out a closet at my parents I found a Weekly Reader questionnaire I had answered saying I wanted to be an art teacher when I grew up. I was in the second grade when I wrote that! When I was in the 9th. grade I gathered together some little girls in the neighborhood and taught them "art".
I majored in art at Memphis State, enrolling in 1956. I had expected to be a painter but when I had an art education course and was exposed to ceramics I immediately decided that was my choice. There was only one ceramics class at Memphis State and it was in the Industrial Education Department. I loved it. There was a really awkward old treadle potter's wheel there. I spent hours at it trying to center and pull up the clay. The teachers encouraged me but didn't know how to help me very much.
I married in my junior year, became pregnant and returned to college to do my practice teaching right after our daughter was born. By chance I got a job teaching art at Trezevant High School before I finished my degree. I took a few courses at the Art Academy after I finished my teaching credentials and graduated from Memphis State in 1961. I especially loved the ceramics course I took with Thorne Edwards right before he left the Academy. We were also leaving Memphis because my husband had a job teaching in the overseas Dept. of Defense Schools in Okinawa. Thorne advised me to find an Okinawan potter to work with. I took his advice and had a wonderful experience there, meeting and working with Shoji Hamada twice when he came to spend the winters with the potter I was working with, Eisabro Arakaki. The second year we were there I taught art at Kubasaki High School the Dept. of Defense school on the island.
We were transfered to Germany. I found it difficult to do much with my clay work there but I was exposed to European ceramics both historical and contemporary. After a year there my husband and I were both ready to go back to the Orient and enrolled in graduate school at the University of Hawaii. After a year there we left to go to Santa Barbara where I had experience in a co-operative pottery producing pottery and selling it (or trying to).
Teaching jobs took us to Birmingham, Alabama. Again I was able to produce and sell my work but my main livelihood was from teaching. After four years there we went to the University of Florida graduate school where I had a teaching assistantship and received my MFA in ceramics in 1975. I took a job teaching ceramics at the University of Central Arkansas the next year and taught there until I retired in 2001. In the summer of 1992 I went off to work in clay in West Africa or the Ivory Coast whose wild dark art fascinated me. I now live in North Arkansas in a wonderful old school complex which we converter into living, studio, office and shop space.
I do keep a sketch book and always have. You can imagine how much I enjoy looking back at the Okinawa books. By the way, in the summer of 1980, I returned to Okinawa, financed by a grant from UCA to work with my potter there and it was wonderful experience. As you can tell from my narrative I have not participated in any residences but know many people who have and who feel they have been valuable for them. The chance to see "how others do it" is very important . I've been able to do that in my own way. If I had not had those unique opportunities I would have been very interested in residences or internships that were available.
Back to sketch books: sketches capture the day and night images I experience. When I have the time, space and energy to do my work, I can look in my sketch book and find just what I want to do. Sometimes I can look at sketches from years past and respond with just as much excitement as if I had that image pop into my head the day before yesterday or just a minute ago.
Daydream images like those of the night flit in and out of consciousness and have to be captured so they can become reality. If I can look at a sketch I can help a student with the problems connected with making that form. This way I, as the teacher, avoid imposing my own personal aesthetic on the work. I insisted on students having sketch books and have been thanked by former students for getting them started on the habit of keeping a sketch book.
I am a compulsive "maker." In all my moving around I always had a place for my art making. Most of them far from ideal - a table in the kitchen, on the back porch, garage or basement and in sunny southern California, outside, except in February. Today, I have the dream studio and feel very lucky.
Today, at 73, I try to find time every day for some kind of work, even if it's day dreams about what I want to do next. Since my teaching was always art I feel that art has been my full time job. I have had to slow down a little in the last year due to surgery but today I was able to raku three pieces. I was happy to find my strength back and my ambition to "make" as strong as ever.
Advice -- be open to adventure. People who work in clay often enjoy working together. If you find that idea attractive try co-operative studios, kilns, or galleries. Collective energy can accomplish a lot. I am fairly introverted but have been involved in all of the co-operative ventures and feel I have profited from them.
Don't be discouraged if you don't just immediately "find your artist self" after graduation. There is usually a certain amount of "treading water" while your body and imagination finds your direction. Follow your intuition as well as your bliss. Try not to get discouraged. Remember - life is long, creativity will keep you young, at least for a long while. Good luck..
