Warner Hyde, Potter
Since childhood, the excitement of fine art and the natural world has been a driving force in my life’s path. Time is and has been spent in the woods as an aspiring naturalist and in the galleries from a young age with desire to create meaningful visual communications. The love and connection of human life in its relation to the botanical and animal realms leads to many unusual and molding experiences. During high school this included participation in saving endangered loggerhead sea turtles in the summers, working in funeral homes, a full studio art curriculum, and competitive archery tournaments. From Spartanburg, S.C., I then moved to Brevard, N.C. to attend college earning a B.A., and a minor in ecology. It was during these years that I was exposed to the world of orchids and simultaneously to that of ceramics. Time outside of the classroom was spent working at a large commercial orchid nursery, at the Penland School of Art and Crafts, and assisting a local wood-fire ceramic artist, Judith Duff. After graduation I became a resident artist at the Odyssey Center of Ceramic Arts in Asheville, N.C. Then I became involved with the American Orchid Society as a Student Judge, while making a living from my ceramics and orchid sales. The total of these experiences made it possible for me to be a graduate student in ceramics at Clemson University in Clemson, S.C. earning a Master of Fine Arts degree in 2006. I also taught ceramics at the Greenville Museum of Art in Greenville, S.C. during my graduate work as well as adjunct and resident work at various institutions. My wife, Raiford, and I moved back to Brevard in the summer of 2006 where I joined the Brevard College faculty teaching ceramics and art history while Raiford earned her K-12 art licensure. I am currently an Assistant Professor of Art at Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C. teaching all ceramics class and a 3-D design class. We currently live in Pittsboro, NC, which is a creatively rich community and has brought much freedom to our lives and art. We are blessed by our 2 year old daughter, Lucy Boone, and are expecting another child in the 2010 summer. My current interest is in creating site-specific natural installations which are created and exhibited in the outdoors.
My current work seeks to capture physically the heightened consciousness experienced while interacting intimately with the natural world. This is achieved by using one of nature’s most direct materials, clay, which composes 47% of the earth’s surface. One of clay’s most appealing qualities is its tangible and immediate sensitivity. I call upon this quality as a conductor, to record my mental, physical, and emotional state while handling the material.
My studio is wherever I find an internal calling to stop and absorb the natural world around me. This is usually off the beaten trail and absent of daily human interference. I enjoy working in the raw elements of the weather, as that guides the forms I create intuitively, as a response to my chosen natural environment. This also adds to the appropriately ephemeral nature of this work. The heat and intensity of the sun will crack and dry the clay, just as the moisture of the ground and rains will erode the clay back to its origin. My surroundings subconsciously inform the work as well. It is while working in this manner that the creative process becomes a meditation for communing with the knowledge of the natural world I am seeking. I find that the natural world is the all- sensory representation of the higher power. Ceramic forms created from working this way become the temporary physical extension of my experience.
