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Twyla Wardell is a Southern
California artist who has been creating art with clay since the 1970s.
She learned her craft from nationally acclaimed clay artists and educators
Susan Peterson and Virginia Cartwright. She developed her own unique
sculpting techniques to create original designs for functional and sculptural
art. Her work is influenced by ancient cultures, folklore and mythology.
Currently she is working on a series inspired by a trip to Chaco Canyon
in New Mexico. Her emotional response to Chaco Canyon was so profound
that she was compelled to capture some of her feelings in clay, using
the colors, textures and shapes of the land. Her experiences transformed
her work into a colorful mixture of images that evoke the desert landscape
and wildlife. The texture of the cracked and weathered desert earth stimulated
her to try a new technique using a torch on the wet clay. The process
pushed the clay beyond its boundaries with dramatic results.
Working on the Chaco Canyon series has been very exciting process for
her. In her work you will see references to the kivas, potshards,
antlers, bones, ravens, beads and petroglyphs. After her visit to Chaco Canyon
she recalled pleasant memories of growing up in the Mojave Desert in California.
She remembered that when she was a child she found a pot shard on the prehistoric
lava beds in the desert. She wondered then who had made the pot that
was now broken, who had walked the same path. These vessels are her
memories of the land, the animals and the people who walked there in ancient
times.
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