As a self-taught artist, Sondra was not able to truly devote time to her creative journey until after retiring from her life in the business world.
Now that she has removed her corporate “hat”, her surroundings constantly inspire her artistic expression. After making her first ceramic piece in 2014, Sondra was hooked. Her journey has taken her to study with Spanish, Austrailian, English, and American ceramic artists to develop her skills.
With her pottery, her chosen medium is porcelain because its strength and delicacy learn to live in harmony. It is her perfect canvas to display the beautiful zinc-silicate crystals that can only be created through normally destructive fire. These naturally occurring phenomena inspire her never-ending desire to artistically harness their capability on the backdrop of her forms – which equally exude both capability and femininity.
She creates her forms on the potter’s wheel with a vision to move the observer’s eye from one end of the piece fluidly around the work without interruption. On this canvas, she applies glazes that she develops using rare earth elements and oxides to create dramatic backdrops for her crystal formations. To create these crystal
formations, she fires her pieces to approximately 2350 Fahrenheit and then holds her kiln, for hours, at various temperatures. Each hold adjusts the size, shape, color, and depth of her crystals. She wants the observer to become lost in the crystal and for each person to discover something new every time they view her work.
