Deborah Schwartzkopf received her BFA from the University of Alaska Anchorage in 2002, spent time studying Glaze Chemistry at San Diego State University and completed her MFA at Penn State University in 2005. She traveled abroad after graduation, through an NCECA student show award, spending time honing her craft at Sanboa Ceramics Art Institute in Jingdezhen, China. Schwartzkopf completed a residency at The Archie Bray Foundation in late 2005, followed by an appointment at Ohio University’s Ceramics Program as a Visiting Assistant Professor. She is a former Artist in Residence at Mudflat Studios near Boston, and now lives in Seattle where she recently accepted a position at Pottery Northwest. She is currently the Guest Artist in Residence at The Clay Studio, through February of 2010.
In writing about her work Deborah states, "I find it rewarding and challenging to make pots people will use. In my home growing up, hand made objects held special value and were gestures of consideration and love. I enjoy the community that eating together builds, and I find it meaningful to make beautiful serving vessels. Pots are a place where I can combine abstraction of emotion, personal meaning, and relation to environment. In order to carry this metaphor, I work to create vessels that will live within a kitchen that celebrates life with practical beauty. I build porcelain forms whose defining lines and soft planes are both geometric, and sensual. They are also elegant with characteristics that show liveliness and represent organic forms. I merge nature’s placement of hue to imply function, trigger associations, and to call for exploration."
"My process consists of building and throwing cylinders that are altered and join them to parts made of slabs. These slab built sections are done in a combination of the following ways: shaped over hand built molds, modeled or produced using bisque clay molds. This complex process also informs the shapes my mind envisions; puzzling over these pieces helps spur new forms. Form, in turn, brings me back to surface. I find them intertwined, both integral and defining. I know I have reached my goal when my work provokes thought and adds to a sense of discovery along with play as it is comfortably used."
