Jane Reichhold
Ceramics
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In the late 1960s Jane had a ceramic studio in a condemned building in the rural San Joaquin town of Dinuba where she was production potter making tea sets and large thumbprint vessels that were sold through Mirzelle Galleries in Los Angeles . When she moved to Hamburg Germany where she married her husband, Werner Reichhold, she was unable to get a permit for a kiln without completing a two-year program with a master ceramist. After trying several ways to get her pots fired without getting her own kiln, she gave up and turned to making large rope sculptures which have been shown and collected throughout Europe since 1975. When she and her husband moved to Point Arena in 1981, and she no longer had the adjacent harbor for obtaining the ropes she needed for sculpture, she turned to writing, publishing and teaching haiku.
Thinking she was now too old to every go back to working in clay, she was totally surprised when attending a meeting at Brandybuck Ranch to discover how delighted she was to find Kaye Like's ceramic studio. On a whim she signed up for the Santa Rosa Junior College class opening the next Monday. To be working in clay again, to feel a pot spinning under her hands, was a return to bliss. By spring 2002 she had found the large forms that offer her endless possibilities for ideas and manipulations. With her own studio now set up, she is able to concentrate on the development of what she calls "personages." Each tall vessel (up to 42 inches), made of three wheel-thrown sections takes on a name, a personality and is thus given a setting from which to emanate a message in the same way our thoughts set a stage for our individual being.  "Shelf Life" was a series of the vessel recently shown at the Dolphin Gallery in Gualala that told the story of the eight phases of a woman's life from the desire of her parents for a child to her own enlightenment and sanctification.
And the thumbprint pots are as popular as they were in the 60s, so she makes several of these a year selling them almost as fast as they are produced. Jane Reichhold's complete resume - http://www.ahapoetry.com/jrbio.htm She continues her work with haiku, publishing weekly in the Independent Coast Observer under the name "haikujane" and with her newest book from Kodansha International, Writing and Enjoying Haiku: A Hands-on Guide. © 2003 Jane Reichhold |
