POGS BY MARY GARBER
| In college, Mary found herself making doodles of these wild, ferocious looking creatures, somewhat wolflike and some lumpy. These usually became etchings but she turned to them when she needed a subject for clay sculpture. The art department had just bought a slab roller so she started building her creatures out of clay slabs. She received her MFA in 1983 and immediately went to work as a graphic artist at the Virginia Power Company. After almost 14 years at Virginia Power, she decided to make the big leap and went into ceramics full time. The one car garage behind her 1925 house became her studio and fitted it with an air conditioner and Star Trek posters. She uses two electric kilns and a small trash can Raku kiln which she fires out in the back yard. Mary's neighbors enjoy the occasional faint aroma of burning newspapers when she is firing up the Raku. Mary credits the humor influences of Jackie Gleason, Red Skelton and the drawings of James Thurber. As for the name, she kept getting questions as to "what are they?" Not pigs (ears aren't right), not dogs (no snout), not hippos. Well, they must be Pogs! |
