Artist Statement

     English pea pods on the vine, their bright green orbs warm in the sun.  A gouged-out seed potato evolving into a plant beneath a clear blue sky.  A yellow crook neck squash blossom giving way to it's fruit and wilting back towards the earth.  Such images, and their re-imaginings, have informed the palette of my recent porcelain work.

     Since my return to the farm in Julian, North Carolina where I grew up, I have begun to revisit the sensory experiences of my childhood with adult eyes.  My work explores the area between remembered moments and present perceptions, and the places where imagination overwhelms memory.  The aestetic truth forged by these reckonings is found in a host of new images-almost recognizable to me, but not quite-that have surfaced as I reconcile past and present.

     Meditation on the ritual of family meals throughout my childhood has been a natural extention of my focus on cycles of the farm.  Motifs of seed turning to plant have been echoed in the warm memories of a table set with distinct bowls, each holding its own special flavor and texture that would evolve into sustenance.  I consider the way my own recepticles will appear both with and without food in them, endevoring in both cases to preserve the clean lines and pure colors of my original sensory world.

     I feel the most grounded when I am working.  My work engages my whole self, helps me think, focus and process, and makes me expectant of good things to come.

Biography and Technical Statment

     Kelly O'Briant's work in ceramics has made an expansive journey of form and material alongside her own travels through North Carolina and abroad.  A native of Julian, NC, Kelly earned her BFA in Design with a second major in Cultural Anthropology from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  Afterwards, Kelly interned with potter Judith Duff in Cedar Mountain before entering the two year Core Program at Penland School of Crafts. While at Penland, she gained expertise in a variety of techniques, including wood, salt and soda firing, porcelain, stoneware and earthenware, majolica and china painting.  Kelly began her journey as a full time potter during her time as a resident artist at the Energy Xchange in Burnsville, NC.

     Kelly's current focus is in functional porcelain, which she appreciates for its clean lines and artistic accessibility.  After making forms on the wheel, she uses a number of decorating techniques including carving, incising, and brush work to achieve lines, textures and images.  The pieces are then bisque in an electric kiln, glazed and fired to a higher temperature.

     Kelly's work has been featured in a number of exhibitions, among them, "Emerging Clay of the South", at the Blue Spiral in Ashville, NC and "Garden to Table", a solo show at the Horace Williams House in Chaple Hill, NC.  She regularly participates in American Craft Council shows, as well as various other retail shows and studio tours.  She now resides in Julian, NC, with her husband, printmaker Matthew Thomason, and their two cats, Donovan and Cookie.