Shutesbury artist Valerie Gilman, 50, began working with clay when she was 8, and continued to do so throughout her childhood in Alexandria, Virginia. She kept right at it at Earlham College, which, she says, has a strong pottery program, with a bent toward a Japanese aesthetic. Along the way, she also explored sculpture and poetry.
“While my professional work has often focused in the sculptural realm, I have never lost the sense of magic that comes with pottery and I am thrilled that at this point, both directions are alive,” Gilman says.
Hampshire Life: What are you working on now?
Valerie Gilman: Functional salt fired pottery, clay sculptures that are abstract and reference organic structures, both animal and plant like bone, cell and nerve structures, organs and root systems, and life-sized figurative sculptures.
H.L.: What is your creative process like?
V.G.: Making functional pottery is a meditative repetition of familiar form that allows a kind of attention to subtle detail and an intimate connection to an audience. If I do my work well, someone will drink their morning tea out of my mug, and if I am really successful, it will be the one they have to have every morning.
The abstract sculptures I make both in clay and in bronze satisfy a different need; they are an exploration into the unknown of my psyche. I start with the material — either clay or wax — and I might know the general size or I might have given myself a frame to work within, but I do not know where I am going. I play with it until I start to see something interesting and build from there, allowing myself to chase what is compelling visually.
H.L.: How do you know you’re on the right track?
V.G.: When I start to giggle or feel giddy, I know. This is odd because so often the work is expressing challenging or uncomfortable dynamics, but there is a heightened sense of energy when I am on to something. I want the work to express some deeper truth, things that my psyche is working out in a subconscious way, and if I try to understand and put words to it too quickly the work becomes flat or obvious. I allow myself to tend to the details and fall in love with the forms, and in so doing I have found that there is amazing healing and transformative power.
H.L.: What do you do when you get stuck?
V.G.: I go through dry spells — other things in life are taking over and I neglect the studio for a while. I start to get grumpy and usually it takes me a shockingly long time to figure out why. It is a real challenge to get going again. I have to trick myself into starting again. I get some clay in my hands and tell myself that it is only doodling — throw-away stuff, nothing serious. Often I do this outside of the studio, on my couch, in a café, on the plane, in a boring meeting. Pretty soon I am having fun with form again and the ideas for larger things are starting to pop in and I am pulled back into my studio.
H.L.: Why do you think we need art?
V.G.: Without it life is flat, all systems become thick and slow, our overactive brains take over and convince us into believing things that are one-sided or simplified versions of the truth, and the sense of isolation is unbearable. Creativity of all sorts is like blood in the veins, water in the soil, springs in the mattress. It gives meaning to life and life to meaning.
— Kathleen Mellen
Artwork by Valerie Gilman is on view and for sale, through Dec. 31, at the Small Wonders show at Gallery A3, 28 Amity St. in Amherst.
Her work will be featured, along with Elaina Kennedy’s, in another exhibit at Gallery A3, which will open with a reception Jan. 5, 2017, from 5 to 8 p.m. and will remain on view through Jan. 28. There will also be an Art Forum Jan. 19 at 7 p.m. Gallery hours are Thursdays through Sundays from 1 to 7 p.m.
For more information, visit www.valeriegilman.com.