HEIDI LOEWEN PORCELAIN GALLERY & SCHOOL
A new adventure brought our family to Santa Fe, New Mexico, on January 1, 1992.
The day of arrival, I drove up to the ski basin in a raging white-out snow storm. I knew I’d be back to porcelain soon. I assumed I’d find myself immersed in museum or gallery work. Santa Fe Clay asked me to teach for three years. One suggestion from my husband was all it took for me to open my own studio and ceramics school.
In 1996, I founded the Heidi Loewen Porcelain Gallery & School. Sotheby’s and curating the art foundation were great professions. Both provided a strong basis for running my gallery, studio and school.
Good fortune placed my new gallery, studio & school close to the historical Plaza and 2 minutes from the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. My front door looks right out onto the festive Santa Fe School of Cooking. What delicious luck.
Most ceramic artists glaze. My passion is in a more non-traditional format. I combine wheel thrown porcelain with innovative design and subtle Asian influences.
Porcelain is my sculptural canvas. My work is smoked with a variety of pine needles and organic combustibles yielding strong earth tones, punctuated with the vibrancy of gold leaf. As the famous chefs Julia Child and Nigella Lawson famously prepare their delicious food, I sprinkle my “spices” of combustibles to smoke, add a dash of oil paint and place finishing touches with pigmented waxes or varnish to my platters and sculptures.
Often my new techniques are direct results of crazy mistakes.
These mistakes usually become my most successful techniques. As an example, the carved chattering came as a result of my tool bumping along the clay, as it was too hard to trim in a smooth fashion. I’ve been making this great “mistake” with carving my clay for years now!
My creations vary from playful miniatures, to large-scale vessels, to multiple installations. I’m drawn to refined, elegant forms with curls, swirls and exceedingly thin rims. I try to capture elegance and humor simultaneously in my porcelain. I take my work seriously, but throw in a dash of humor at every turn.
–Heidi
