Profile and Portfolio

Mary Clare Jakes

Artist Statement

My first pottery classes were at the University of Illinois while getting my bachelor’s degree in geology. I sometimes wonder where my life would have led if I had changed my major from Geology to Ceramics back then. I continued on with a career as a petroleum exploration geologist for ten years, and then was in social services for the next 14. Throughout this time I continued to take classes through community colleges, with experienced potters and at many workshops. Although I have tried many other craft forms, I kept returning to pottery. I find it is always variable and that is interesting to me. Opening a kiln is like Christmas. I am always excited to see what this round of firing has done.

Six years ago, we built a studio at our home in Waukegan. I didn’t get to play in the mud as a child so now I am in my studio, Play In the Mud, as often as I can.

Being in my studio gives me a sense of peace and calm with time passing unmeasured. Creating in clay provides a physical expression of my efforts – a different view of the many other activities in my life. I enjoy making functional pottery, taking quirks in the throwing process to stretch my imagination in form and design.

My hand built pieces preserve an old craft, handmade lace, into a more permanent, colorful form. I call this decorative functional work. The pieces are often hung on the wall but the glazes are food-safe so the piece can be used for food preparation and serving. The pieces are dishwasher and microwave safe.

I often do consignment work, taking one’s own lace and creating pieces from that source. The lace is not destroyed in the process.

Profile and Portfolio
Artist Statement

Artistic Services
Decorative Functional Pottery – plates, trays, platters, bowls, flower vases using antique lace to provide texture and food-safe glazes

Functional Pottery – bowls, mugs, colanders, flower vases all with food-safe glazes that are dishwasher and microwave safe

Contact
Mary Clare Jakes
Phone: 847-989-1021
Email: mcjakes55@cs.com
Website: www.playinthemud.net

Portfolio

Profile and Portfolio

Biography

Leisa Shannon Corbett is a figurative and abstract painter with a passion for creating psychological and spiritual depth in her work.  Her recent portraits explore the close bonds between humans and their animals. In some of her earlier work, animals stand in for humans.

She has an abiding interesting in exploring space as inspiration for creative reverie. Sometimes her explorations take the form of large geometric abstractions that suggest urban architectural space. The abstract paintings were inspired in part from living in a walled city (Berlin, Germany) for 12 years. The more recent influence downtown Chicago architecture has inspired her to do a new series of abstract paintings

Living among the prairie and wetlands of Northern Illinois during the past few years has inspired Leisa to try naturalistic landscapes in oil for the first time. She hopes the paintings reveal the joy, wonder, and peace she feels living in the Midwest.

Leisa was born in Saint Louis, Missouri. She earned a A.A degree in Art from St. Louis Community College.  Eager to see world, she joined the U.S. Army and was accepted into Military Intelligence. She trained as a German linguist. She served eight years in the military, married Bill Corbett, and moved to Germany.  In Berlin, Leisa earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in art history, then exhibited and sold her paintings in local galleries. In Germany, she ran a business conducting tours of Berlin art museums for English speakers.

After her husband died in Berlin, Leisa returned to the United States.  In 2000, she graduated from Vermont College of the Fine Arts with an MFA in Visual Art and worked three years for Golden Artists Colors teaching workshops and giving technical lectures.  From 2001-2006, she taught art history, art appreciation, drawing and painting at North Lake College in Irving, Texas and Collin County Community College in Plano and Frisco, Texas. She exhibited her work in commercial and university galleries and juried exhibitions in Europe and the United States.

In 2001, she won the Raucus Science Club Award at the Art in the Metroplex Competition in Fort Worth, Texas.  In 2005 she won a ribbon in the Colored Pencil Society of America’s Finer Points Exhibition in Irving, Texas.  Leisa has received the Excellence in Teaching Award for Adjunct Faculty at North Lake College for 2005-2006. The Excellence in Teaching Award is a competitive award bestowed by the faculty of North Lake to the best adjunct professor of the year.

Since moving to northern Illinois, she has served as President and later Program Director of the Lake County Art League. She is a member of the Dandelion Gallery in Waukegan, Illinois www.dandeliongallery.org