Joanne Vecchiola

Joanne Vecchiola is a multi media artist artist from Cabot, Vermont. She received a BFA in Art Education from Goddard College, Vermont College of Norwich University in 1983. She has taken numerous classes, workshops and intensives in San Miguel de Allende Mexico, Castle Hill Truro MA, Studio School in Johnson Vermont and other Central Vermont locations for many years.

She now works primarily in clay, experimenting with the different types of clays, glazes and firings. She creates both hand made functional pottery and sculptural objects inspired by nature.

Joanne says: Although my background has been in painting and photography, I now primarily work in clay. I find myself drawn to the dynamic of working in threes: past, present and future; above, below and at the surface, symbolic, ancestral and sacred.

Spending time on a quiet pond in Northern Vermont, I find myself observing seasonal changes of life on and near the water. When I am on the pond I am contained in my kayak, moving slowly and with little sound. I see the water striders skimming the surface, the beavers with their arrow- like heads forming designs, the movement of the grasses, and the cut of the water from the kayak. We are all related in breaking the tension of the surface with movement.

At the surface I see the downed branches that the beavers use to make their paths. They move efficiently on the top of the water, harvesting their winter food supply and bringing it down into their watery dens. I see spiral-shaped cedar trees under the surface of the water that have become something very different; water wings, arrows, other worlds? This intrigues me. My goal is to continue to explore these reflections in my work.

I am a hand builder and I strive to reorganize my visual environment. Like the beavers I gather, collect and build systematically. My creative process is to first, make a foundation. This foundation will hold the piece and allow the idea to hang, sit or take root. I then move on to working on the surface of the piece with an open mind. Sometimes the clay pulls something different from my intended application that leads me in a different direction. Intuitively, it rises up on its strong foundation to stand and become a vessel, a home, the place of an idea.