Donna Rizzo Ceramics

Donna Rizzo thinks of her life as divided into distinct, but intimately related chapters. Chapter One was her upbringing on a farm in Tennessee in touch with animals and the rural way of life. In Chapter Two, she went away to school to become a professional dancer and choreographer. Chapter Three finds her teaching creative movement with children. The chapter she is writing now brings together those experiences through the medium of clay.

In her studio in rural Middle Tennessee she spins her stories: magical tales filled with exuberant dance, eccentric characters, and quirky critters. Like a seasoned dancer, she works spontaneously and intuitively on her sculptures. She uses stoneware or earthenware embellished with colored slips, underglazes, glazes, and multiple firings to bring them to life.

Thrown on the potter’s wheel, hand-modeled, molded and textured using things she finds in the woods around her studio, clay is the ideal material for this imaginative artist. As a natural storyteller, she relies on her creative gestures to advance the story and like a good writer, she writes about what she knows.