Art Fx is a year-long series on Huntsville Doppler featuring Huntsville-area visual artists.
Local potter Karen Gray uses sgraffito technique—drawing a design on unfired clay and then scratching away the clay or colour to reveal the image—to create one-of-a-kind items that are both beautiful and practical. She’s inspired by the requests of her clients, which often come from their own memories: images of starry nights, loons, moon reflecting through birch trees. “No matter if I’m drawing cottages, whales, or poppies, there’s no shortage of inspiration to me,” she says.
“Sgraffito allows me to carve images into clay that tell a story. Makes you remember. Makes you respond.”
Karen has ready-made items available in her gallery, and also creates custom, made-to-order, personalized pottery for anniversaries, weddings, birthdays, and celebrations.
This set of wide, shallow, stoneware clay bowls, measuring 10 inches wide by two inches deep, are ideal for pasta, soup, or salads. They each feature a woodland image which was first carved by hand into the clay. Then bright colours were handpainted onto each piece before being fired in the kiln twice. They sell for $40 each. (supplied photo)
About the artist:
In 2001, Karen enrolled in the ceramics course at Haliburton School of the Arts where I learned the ins and outs of the world of pottery. In 2008, real life presented the opportunity to leap into full-time, self-employment as a potter and The Potter’s Studio & Gallery, Maynooth Ontario, was born in 2009.
In 2016, The Potter’s Studio & Gallery relocated to Huntsville, at 16 Brunel Road, where it hums along, creating images and stories in clay.
The Potter’s Studio & Gallery is open year-round, and currently by appointment only. Curbside pickup and shipping are also available.
Karen Gray can be reached by phone at 705-783-0242, or find her online at thepottersstudio.com, on Facebook as The Potters Studio Gallery, and on Instagram @the.potters.studio.gallery.
See more local art in Doppler’s Art Fx series here.
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