Cherry Blossom Festival artisan to offer ways to “shape” creativity

Devanie Schilpp will be presenting demonstrations at this year’s Brookhaven Cherry Blossom Festival

Brookhaven, GA, March 15, 2019 - Combining the innate joy of a child making mud pies with a spark of imagination, Atlanta artisan Devanie Schilpp doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty. Channeling her inner creativity, clumps of clay spring forth from her potter’s wheel as unique objects d’art worthy of any home or office display shelf. Schilpp’s pottery skills will be on full display at guest demonstrations during this year’s Brookhaven Cherry Blossom Festival, March 30-31 at Blackburn Park, 3493 Ashford Dunwoody Road.

“At the festival, we will be demonstrating a variety of things,” notes Schilpp. “We will be making some mugs, what we call ‘gateway’ pieces of pottery. We will also create a variety of smaller items and, for show, we will also do some larger pieces so people can see the difference in throwing something large as opposed to just a mug. We will have a potter’s wheel on site and (fellow artisans) Tania Julian, Candace McCollough, Lillian Bolster and I will be doing demonstrations throughout the day. We will have finished items available for purchase plus offer information about our classes and community outreach.”

After attending Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Schilpp moved to Atlanta in 1997 as a professional photographer. A gift of clay making lessons from her husband piqued her interest in clay making and, she admits, it wasn’t long before she was hooked on the art form. “I wasn’t very good at first, but as I developed my skills I became more confident with working in the medium and eventually became better at it,” she recalls. “Clay is a medium with so many different facets…all kinds of different firing techniques, clays, glazes, etc. that keep you drawn in and there’s always so much more to learn.”

Schilpp personally prefers craftsman, art deco and art nouveau styles when working in clay. “I’m inspired by other artists but regardless of what style you try to emulate, every pair of hands and every brain is going to interpret existing work differently,” she continues. “You might be inspired by someone else’s work or a particular style, but just like in music, everything you have experienced as an individual gets melded into that style, providing a somewhat different interpretation and making it your own.” 

President of the Atlanta Clay Works (ACW) artist collective, Schilpp helped found the 501c3 nonprofit cooperative in 2002 in the heart of Cabbagetown, an inner city neighborhood known for its eclectic artist community. Following a series of relocations over the next decade, today the group is housed in two small buildings featuring a studio, full work space and gallery in the cozy pocket Atlanta neighborhood of Kirkwood.

There she and her fellow collective members have created an artistic presence in the area through art classes, summer camps for youngsters, working with social groups such as the Boy and Girl Scouts, community outreach and offering classes to a growing audience of clay enthusiasts. ACW offers “clay play” once a month to wannabe potters where they can book a wheel, bring a friend and a beverage and try their hand at making pottery to see if this is an art form they want to pursue. 

The wide array of work produced and skills taught by the collective members cover the gamut from functional art (everyday utilitarian items like mugs, bowls and plates) to sculptural and non-functional pieces. Eight-week classes are offered in hand building and “throwing” (shaping clay on the potter’s wheel), including learning how to trim, glaze, decorate with such techniques as graffito and marbling, as well as how to use wood, electric and raku firing methods.

ACW is proud to grow their community outreach through a variety of venues such as empty bowl fundraisers, veteran workshops, schools, and various public clay and play workshops. They are especially proud to be able to work with Atlanta’s Shepherd Center, providing art therapy classes for patients with spinal or neurological injuries utilizing clay pottery skills to help them with left brain/right brain exercises to assist in re-establishing neural pathways. Beginning this year, the ACW gallery has begun showcasing the work of local artisans in addition to presenting the work of collective members.

Schilpp, whose son is a student at Brookhaven’s Globe Academy, is familiar with the area and excited about participating in the Cherry Blossom Festival. “Any time people can experience an art form, they gain an appreciation of how something like a pottery piece is made,” she adds. “Many don’t realize how much labor is involved in making a ceramic item. Numerous steps are involved from throwing the piece on the wheel or creating it by hand.

“It then has to dry a bit, be trimmed and allowed to dry again (sometimes up to two weeks) before it is fired (another 24 hours) and then glazed and fired again. Just getting that one piece finished takes many, many steps. There are so many steps involved in the process and each piece is unique unto itself. That’s what I find rally exciting about the craft.”

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