Verde Dirt: Highway 89A

Image: Porcelain with Verde River Brick Clay, Wheel-thrown and Altered, 8.5" x 6", Cone 6 Reduction Firing

New Ceramics from Virginia Pates

Chunks of feldspars and granite and flecks of manganese and copper break through translucent porcelain glazes in Virginia Pates’ new ceramic work on exhibition at Gallery 527 in Jerome. Over the past three years, Pates has been searching the Verde Valley region for deposits of rocks, minerals and clays to create texture across her sparse and simple cylindrical forms. She sieves and mixes the dirt with her clay bodies, sometimes spread throughout the pot, and sometimes occurring in bands and seams, very much like the natural landscape.
This new body of work explores Highway 89A from the top of Mingus Mountain through the artists’ colony of Jerome, takes a sideswipe at the Verde Valley Campus of Yavapai College in Clarkdale, Page Springs and Sedona, and ends up Oak Creek on the Mogollon Rim.
 

Gallery 527