Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 24, 1995 TAG: 9504250014
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: NANCY GLEINER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The room is a study in grays and whites - floor, walls, table top, shelving, plaster boxes, unpainted earthenware - even the shade of the artist's hands as she gently dabs a spot here and there on a clay figure, then scrapes an edge, smooths a curve, turning the piece as she works.
Finally satisfied, she tilts the figure in her hand, exposing the soft underside, and scratches her name in a new work of art with a common ballpoint pen.
``Polseno,'' she writes.
Donna Polseno, whose works are shown in important galleries across the country, who has taught or presented at many respected art schools in the United States, who has won two National Endowment for the Arts grants and a Virginia Museum fellowship, who has been on the covers of national ceramics magazines.
And who lives in Floyd County.
You're much more likely to find her work in New York than in Roanoke. She achieved national recognition soon after completing graduate work at the Rhode Island School of Design. Her reputation is more nationally-sown than locally-grown.
When she and husband, Richard Hensley, a well-known artist in his own right, moved to Floyd more than 20 years ago, they were determined to make their living through their art, sidestepping the standard route of teaching while trying to become established.
Their work was on the cutting edge of pottery then - she making low-fired raku pieces on oriental themes, more art than function; he creating functional art work, painted more brightly and abstractly than that of his contemporaries.
Galleries in Washington and Atlanta embraced them immediately, and their precocious rise began. They never had to build a local following and wait for the ripple effect to enhance their reputations.
Their careers were every artists' dream, but it wasn't what Polseno had envisioned. Her life was no longer reflected in her art.
``I was inspired by the oriental art, but wondered what it had to do with my life,'' she said.
She radically changed her forms, creating larger vessels in simpler shapes with somber images painted on them.
``Everybody hated them. Galleries sent them back and people dropped me from books they were writing,'' she said.
It was the first dip in the roller coaster ride.
Without her realizing it, Polseno's new work began to take shape. She made her open ``vessels'' more colorful, though very abstract. They began to twist and curve, suggesting movement and the female form. In time, she was back in favor with the art world.
Then, nine years ago, Polseno lost an eye in a freak car accident. When she went back to her art, gradually, painstakingly learning to work in three dimensions without any depth perception, the abstract figures felt wrong.
Dreams of African women - images she had experienced while in the hospital - came back to her as she worked on the pieces of clay. It was a catharsis for her and a healing of emotional wounds both of the accident and of her mother's death fours years before.
``I started making the first pieces that grew into figures after my mother died,'' she said. ``I was in the studio, working, crying. I was pushing a belly out of a sculpture and the images came back to me.''
The figures became voluptuous, Rubenesque female forms - ``the archetypal container for the spirit,'' Polseno said. The figures lacked detail, barely hinting at anatomy, allowing the shape to be the main focus. The forms twisted and bent, seeming to be in motion, balancing precariously.
The rounded shapes are echoed by the soft mountain ridges Polseno can see from the large window in her studio. The stone-like glazes contrast with the gentle land, yet remind how close life in the country is to nature.
Rather than eroticism, the nude female figures evoke the universal spirit of womanhood, the vessel becoming what Polseno calls a ``visual statement of life, spirit and emotion.''
Polseno's art was once again merging with her own life, which by now included two sons, Haden and Paris. She and Hensley felt a need to provide a more stable income for their family and decided to jointly make slipcast production pieces based on her abstract, figurative forms.
After months of perfecting molds, glazes and techniques, Hensley quit his own successful career in pottery to help with the production work. An artist of his stature walking away from it all saddened and confused many in the art community.
Hensley had also won an NEA grant and had been in every ceramics magazine.
``Any potter who had lifted his head from the wheel knew who he was,'' Polseno said. ``Rick made a clear choice. He wanted to make art that was about his life. He doesn't care if only his friends see it.''
For him, there were no regrets.
``I pretty much had accomplished whatever I thought I would want to do,'' he said. ``And I was so focused on the pottery I had very little time or energy for anything else.''
Hensley has turned some of his energy now toward making furniture, but just for his own pleasure. His first completed piece, an oak and mahogany chair, shows the same originality and high standards for which his pottery is known. The undulating arms of the chair lead to faces that appear to be shaped from, rather than carved into, the wood. The oak fan back contrasts in color with the arms but its curve repeats their movements. The chair graces the living room of the family's wood frame house, along with several pieces of Hensley's pottery, mixing past and future.
Hensley is more the support system, preparing cast from which to make molds, spraying and glazing pieces, working out technical problems, handling the paperwork and shipping duties.
``This is a lot more of a job than I've ever had before, but it does pay a lot better,'' he said.
Polseno does the finish work on the pieces, paints and brainstorms new designs with her partner. The production pieces are for sale all over the country, in places as diverse as department stores and fine arts galleries.
With the division of labor, both artists have more time away from the studio in the converted barn next to the house and are able to spend more time as a family and on other interests. The work still takes many hours a day, but ``we're more efficient with our time,'' Hensley said.
The parallel branches of Polseno's work have begun to converge. As her large, hand-built sculptures have grown larger, so have her production pieces.
She appreciates the balance both types of art provide for her.
``The production work is valid because it supports my family,'' she said. ``But I have always tagged my sense of self worth on my other, one-of-a-kind sculptures.''
She recently returned from a one-woman show in Portland, Ore., where her large pieces sold for a handsome price.
Another crest on the roller coaster.
And where does she go from here?
``Right now, I'm in a mid-life time of soul-searching,'' Polseno said. As she reflects on where she's been and all she's accomplished, she said she feels ``so lucky to be here in Floyd. I've never had to play the big art rat race.''
Hardly the aloof artist type, Polseno feels connected to the community through involvement in her sons' school activities and in the close-knit ties that rural living fosters.
Her art and its changes have provided a clear picture of the inner realizations and transitions of her life.
``I always have to question who I am and what's really important to me,'' she said. ``It's more important to me than my position in the art world.
``This has certainly been an interesting ride.''
by CNB