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Washington (Conn.) ceramic artist Louise W. King's exhibition, "Clay Horses Yet Again," marks the seventh visit of her hand-built clay horses at the Good News Cafe and Gallery, dating back to 1998. The collection of conventional-glaze, Raku-fired and wood-fired horses also have been featured at the New York Ceramics Fair in New York City, the Northern Westchester Center for the Arts in Mount Kisco (N.Y.), and various galleries and art associations in Connecticut and New York. Since 2001, King has created her horses in a studio built in a reconstructed cottage at the Old Red Mill in Bridgewater.
"I was born in New York City before World War II, and must have fallen in love with the first horse that crossed my path," King recalls. Although her father did not share her passion for horses, she says, "Nothing prevented me from studying horses of every shape and kind: mustangs, Royal Doulton horse figurines, carousel horses, Trigger, merry-go-round horses, Tang horses, Shetland ponies."
"For 20 years I've constructed horses, many embellished with designs from clay stamps I've made," she observes. "Each horse is built 'from the ground up' using slabs, coils and pinch pots in their construction. Something imagined, something dreamt, something remembered, something seen out of the corner of the mind's eye. Each horse is a surprise, and my approach to clay is like the optimistic child in the joke, 'There must be a horse in there somewhere!'"
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