Holly Curcio – Red Lodge Clay Center

Holly CurcioSomerville, Massachusetts


Red Lodge Clay Center – Short-Term Resident (AIA) 2018

Holly Curcio is an artist from Massachusetts who currently works as an Art Restorer of objects and maintains her studio at Mudflat Studio. Holly received an MFA in ceramics from Arizona State University in 2007, and a BFA in ceramics from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in 1996. Holly has experience teaching ceramics to all ages, including Ceramics and 3D Design at Emmanuel College in Boston and at ASU. She completed public art commissions in California and has spent time developing her work as an artist-in-residence at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Mendocino Arts Center, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Carbondale Clay Center, Mudflat Studio and AIA at Red Lodge Clay Center. She is a 2019 recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship in Sculpture.

Sculpting clay is a lot like a stream of conscious writing; I am in the moment with the thoughts and emotions as they are given shape. Instead of forcing my agenda on the clay, I spend a lot of time with it, letting ideas percolate. This results in a personal narrative that takes place somewhere between a real and imagined world. This altered reality creates a space for the internal dialogue to be expressed through the physical attitudes the figures embody. I am constantly trying to capture an emotion or a moment, to find a way to reflect on the process of living. Creating figure sculpture gives me a chance to communicate the subtleties of being human.