Giselle Hicks – Red Lodge Clay Center

Giselle HicksHelena, Montana


Red Lodge Clay Center – Short-Term Resident (AIA) 2012, (AIA) 2014

Originally from Southern California, Hicks received her BFA from Syracuse University and her MFA from Alfred University in New York.  She has participated in various artist-in-residence programs including the Anderson Ranch Art Center, the Arts/Industry Program at the Kohler Company, The Clay Studio in Philadelphia, Greenwich House  and The Archie Bray Foundation. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, The John Michael Kohler Art Center, the Bellevue Art Museum, the Southwest School of Art, the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, and the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. Giselle currently lives and works in Helena, Montana.

I make a range of things with clay, including floral Still-Lifes, full-scale ceramic tables and beds, decorative wall tiles inspired by textiles and pinched vessels. I enjoy a studio practice where I can move from one body of work to another where each process satisfies a different creative impulse, always with the intention of making something beautiful for one to encounter or live with.

The works are hand-pinched vessels inspired by iconic forms found throughout ceramic history. They are formal explorations in shape, volume, color and composition. The slow and rhythmic forming process employs very few tools, yielding fresh, dynamic silhouettes. The opaque glaze is soft to the touch like a worn river stone. Fingerprints remain in the porcelain surface celebrating the slight imperfections of the handmade object.