PHYLLIS BAKER HAMMOND

SCULPTOR

For me, the sculpture, has always been about moving on, to transform what I have learned or developed to something new. One aspect, has been to articulate new ideas by teaching. I would burn out teaching and return to reinvent my work with new passion. It also helped to change materials from stoneware clay, to porcelain, to wax (for bronze casting) to flat sheets of metal used today. Finally, a history with enough success to sustain the courage to be innovative.

My first early focus was on mastering use of clay on the potter's wheel, the spontaneity with clay, was not easy, but I produced abstracts works of open shapes, contained shapes and shapes freely changed from the circle. To succeed I needed to internalize the skills so it was like breathing, yet give myself permission to fail, to unwind or unspin and concede to the magic of art.

In my early studies, I learned the value of embracing the unexpected, to hope for the unimagined, and to be experimentally playful—to respect work that happens not because it is planned, but in spite of your plans. The serious work begins when the original work needs to become the 10-20 foot sculpture.