Mimi Abers

What starts me thinking about a new piece can be some simple visual phenomena:
the look of a plump thigh on the sand; an odd branch of a tree; a striking photo
in the news. No matter how it starts, though, my work reflects my personal
demons: fear of aging; feelings of loneliness or pain; feelings of
helplessness and annoyance over my limitations; anger at a lover's apparent
thoughtlessness. For years I have chosen clay as my primary medium because I'm
besotted with love of texture, and clay is a material that never stops. Also I
love the surprises, and accept the disappointments, that occur during a firing.
I like mixing up chunky "ugly" glazes and usually do multiple firings to get a
look that feels right. Clay's limitation, it's fragility, has led me to
incorporate other materials in my pieces. For a long time, I mixed clay with its
opposite in fragility, metal. Recently I've enjoyed casting glass which has
another kind of texture, luminosity and opacity. Generally, I cast class with an
ancient technique called Pate de Verre: essentially lost wax casting, replacing the
wax with tiny "pastes" or pieces of glass called frit and then firing it in a kiln.
When I can, I also sand cast glass. Mixing mediums allows for exanding beyond
their individual limitations and sometimes results in interesting trouble.

I received my undergraduate degree in History and English from Stanford and then
much later an MA in ceramic sculpture from Cal State Northridge. For the last 26
years I have survived financially by working in computer graphics, the last 15
years, creating digital effects for movies.

- Mimi Abers