Since The California Clay Competition at The Artery in Davis was cancelled, I have offered to interview and highlight some of the artists here. I decided to volunteer to do this because I thought the competition had some great work this year and it would be interesting to hear some different perspectives on what is being done with clay. Plus, most of the fun around this show comes from meeting the artists attending the Ceramic Sculpture Conference CCACA.
Maryann Steinert-Foley
This weeks California Clay Conference is Maryann Steinert-Foley, a graduate of UC Davis ceramic arts program who came to clay in the 1980’s through the inspiration of Cuban sculptor and instructor Rosa Estabanez, and later Manuel Neri and Nathan Olivera. At Davis, Maryann was influence by Annabeth Rosen, who taught a low fire process which she continues to use today. She also has studied how to work large-scale with Wanxin Zhang and has taken workshops with Christina Cordova. 
Maryann’s work mostly focuses on figure and horse sculptures with luscious textures and glazes. She starts with low-fire clay from East Bay Clay using Lisa 20 for a red clay, or SW20 for a white clay. Both are high in grog content. She uses commercial low-fire glazes with a few mixed from her TB-9 days at Davis. She tries to keep it spontaneous, never constrained by her first thought on how to proceed. The horses and small pieces take four to six weeks, the larger figures take eight to ten weeks, for sculpting, drying, bisque firing, glazing and re-glazing. “Though for me, the viewer finishes the work narrative. It always pleases me when the viewer sees something in my work that I didn’t."
MaryAnn has had work at the Crocker Museum Big Auction in 2020 and B. Sakata Garo Gallery in Sacramento and is represented by Jen Tough Gallery in Santa Fe. She showed at Crocker Kingsley, and was included in Kurt Fishback’s 71 Portraits of Women Artists. Currently she is working on a new series of horses that will show at B. Sakata Garo in 2021.
“Studio time is a priority every day, but never to the point of complete isolation. I think you can stay healthy by doing what your love, eating well and exercising.” You can see more of her work at: www.maryann-sf.com, or www.facebook.com/Maryannsteinertfoley.
