Interview with Katie Bonadies, June 2024
Dana Stern is a clay artist who also does illustration and fiber arts including sewing, quilting, and embroidery. She went to school for ceramics and studied printmaking where she used prints on fabric to make sculptures. She has been at RWS for three years.
Dana’s art is currently in a period of transition. She predominantly makes functional pottery and her job as a gardener is changing her approach. Part of her day job is to illustrate garden designs by hand, which requires precise renderings with tiny details; it is an exercise in control. As a result, Dana is trying to be freer with her creations in clay, to the extent that she’ll bring clay home to her partner and they will create something together, “She’ll make these shapes that I wouldn’t think of making and I’ll make my own shapes and we’ll place them together and find the fun in art.” That’s the point for Dana, putting an intentional emphasis on fun, otherwise her practice tends to lean towards spending twenty-three hours working on a vase while she strives for perfection.
This way of making art felt tedious and for a while Dana was stressed about creating. She felt like giving up, but she didn’t know how to be an artist any other way. Now, instead of planning what she is going to make and spending time drawing out the designs on paper she goes into the studio and starts creating a pinch pot or a slab and sees where it takes her. ‘Popping out a bunch of work with no meaning’–work that she doesn’t have to think about–is much more fun.
She’s been thinking a lot about a childhood art class she took in a woman’s attic in New York. The class would do activities like paper mâché, and Dana would work on the clay wheel. It was a place for her to go have fun while her dad was working.
She went onto University of Vermont and lived in a pottery-themed house while earning her art degree. At some point along the way she got lost in the idea of having to make something perfect in order to sell it. This took a lot of the joy out of creating, “I’m trying to stay away from monetizing my hobbies.” Dana just wants to keep surviving and making art. Sometimes she still struggles to come into the studios because she didn’t expect to get a full-time job as quickly as she did and thought she would have more time to make art and do some markets, but it was hard to say no to the opportunity.
Before she moved to Portland, Dana hadn’t been creating and was feeling the impact of lack of community. She was just getting started with ‘plant stuff’ when she heard of RWS through her partner’s best friend from twenty years ago who is a current member at RWS. Joining the studios and returning to clay has been a way for Dana to reconnect with herself, “Clay, to me, is one of the most grounding art forms. Just moving it around in your hands, I feel like the tangible aspect of it and the malleable aspect of it is soothing.” Dana moved to Portland because her best friend is in the arts scene and she wanted to be more connected, to join a community and meet new people, “There is no better place to do that than RWS.”
Creating also makes Dana feel connected to her late mom who was very crafty. Dana is memory driven and staying connected to her mom is another way for her to stay connected to herself. She comes from a maternal lineage of quilt-makers, and she loves quilts that are made for artistic purposes that use unexpected patterns, shapes, or texture that give the quilt a sculptural feel. She enjoys seeing art that is technically functional but isn’t really intended to be used in that way, art that is more for the enjoyment of the viewer. She feels it’s important not to differentiate between art and craft due to accessibility or the materials available and has been telling craftspeople that they are artists, “Art doesn’t have to be pretentious or exclusionary.”
Optimism is a main driver for Dana, and she wants to capture the happy things she sees in the world. She loves when she gets to witness the joy her pottery brings to people at markets, and she is happy to inspire a moment of childlike wonder in others. Dana is interested in folk art and pattern making and her pottery has an illustrative quality. The imagery in her work often uses symbols and illustrations inspired by stories and music. Dana loves to use bright, ‘inorganic’ colors in her work, “I don’t have an artistic approach to gardening; I’m very practical, like 'How do these plants serve our ecosystem?', but with art I love bright colors. I see the color orange and I am immediately happy.” When Dana looks at the decoration on her current work, she can see the same kinds of shapes and patterns that she made in her childhood.
Dana is always drawing something in her head and making art is a way for her to empty out her brain. She’s very focused on the corporeal, decorating her pottery with human forms and features. She likes to not be too serious when she draws people and arranges them in very lazy, odd positions or dancing–there’s always a little bit of silliness. Dana doesn’t consider her detailed ceramic decoration to be painting, to her it’s more like drawing and coloring it in. She is inspired by the gestural movements of the painters in the studios and is trying to harness the whimsy of painting. She’s wondering how she can incorporate that energy and layer things and think about color in a painterly way like how a shadow can be green, “There’s a rigidity in my brain that I think painters don’t have.” She says she has a hard time seeing beyond what’s right in front of her, but being in the moment is a good thing–it prevents her from overthinking.
Dana is experimenting and thinking about her childhood memories of those early pottery classes, which is reflected in the patterns she's makes now. She is embracing a lack of control and moving in a different direction, which is producing much different results. Not setting a goal or being attached to an outcome has helped to free her mind, and connecting with her inner child through art making is a reminder that creating and experiencing art is for the enjoyment.
Dana is not very active on social media, but you can contact her through Instagram @sl0wpokestudi0.
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