DONNA POLSENO
BIOGRAPHY
Donna Polseno received her BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and her MAT from the Rhode Island School of Design. She moved to the mountains of Virginia after graduation and has been a studio artist there since 1974. She started her career making pottery which she continues to make, but diverged to a parallel career of making figurative sculpture in the 80’s. Donna has shown in major galleries and museums all over the country. She was included in the “21st Century Ceramics in the US and Canada” traveling exhibition in 2003. She has received two National Endowment of the Arts Grants and a Virginia Museum Fellowship. Essays about her work have been published in many magazines including 2 articles in “Art & Perception” - “Potter’s Space & the Earthbound Goddess” by Wayne Higby, several in “Ceramics Monthly” and most recently in "Studio Potter". She is in several books about pottery and sculpture including the cover of “Sculptural Ceramics” by Ian Gregory.
Donna has been a presenter at several NCECA conferences ((2009 panel “Potters/Sculptors, Sculptors/Potters”) and was given an Honorary Membership Award in 2022. She was a resident at the “Archie Bray Institute”, honorary chair of the Kansas City Art Institute artist’s auction, and a juror for the American Crafts Council. She has taught many workshops and summer programs at schools including Penland School of Crafts, Arrowmont School of Crafts, Alfred University, Appalachian Center for Crafts, Haystack, Long Beach Foundation, and Anderson Ranch Art Center. Internationally she has been an invited participant at a symposium in Izmir, Turkey, has taught twice at an exchange program in Jingdezhen, China, and has taught for many years at La Meridiana- International School for Ceramics, in Certaldo, Italy, as well as showing her sculpture in the “Concreta” exhibiton in Certaldo. Donna taught ceramics part-time at Hollins University from 2004-2020. At Hollins she also created and directed "Women Working With Clay" -an annual symposium that she continues to be a part of. Donna has lived part-time in Italy now for many years, where she and her husband/potter Richard Hensley, have a small house and studio.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My pottery is decorative and each one feels a little like a painting, but it also is beautiful and functional for food and flowers. My pottery work is inspired by nature, which has always been a great part of my rural life, even as a child. My father was a naturalist and a painter of landscapes and birds. I am inspired by the shape of leaves, flowers, birds, grasses and abstractions of these forms. I usually prefer flowing asymmetrical images rather than more formal designs. My glazing is a complicated system of layering and resisting different glazes to create a visually deep and slightly mysterious surface. I attempt to have my work reflect the tranquility of the natural world around me where I live on the side of a mountain.
Shallow Bowl
