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Louise W. King 2008
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Washington (Conn.) ceramic artist Louise W. King's current show, "And Furthermore. Clay Horses," marks the return of her popular hand-built clay horses to the Good News Cafe and Gallery, where she made her first appearance a decade ago in 1998.
In addition to her recurring exhibitions at Good News, King's collection of conventional-glaze, wood-fired and Raku-fired horses has been featured in recent years at the annual New York Ceramics Fair. Her horses are regularly featured at the Washington Art Association, including a 2008 association show with Robert Andrew Parker and Peter Bogardus. She has also shown in New York City at the Chelsea Ceramic Guild and the Greenwich House, as well as the Equidag Gallery in Saratoga, N.Y., the Bachelier-Cardonsky Gallery in Kent, and Olivia in New Preston.
Born in New York City, Ms. King observes, "I must have fallen in love with the first horse that crossed my path." Although her father was not partial to horses, she says, "Nothing stopped me from studying every shape and kind of horse: Mustangs, Beswick china horses, Trigger, merry-go-round horses, hunters, Tang horses, mules, circus horses, Citation."
After early attempts at sketch drawings of horses, Ms. King took a sculpture class at the Washington Art Association and "encountered clay, in its infinite variety," she recalls.
"The horses started small, static and primitive, then took off, getting bigger and livelier with time. Each horse is built from the ground up, using slab, coils and pinchpots in their construction-something imagined, something dreamt, something seen out of the corner of the mind's eye. If nobody bought the clay horses, I'd make them anyway and bury them in the backyard for future archeological mystification."
She describes her work in clay as "an endless adventure.. My approach to clay is like the optimistic child in the joke: 'There must be a horse in there somewhere....'"
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