The Whimsical World of Barbara Toole's Pottery
BY LUCRETIA VOIGT INDEPENDENT ARTS WRITER
When you enter Barbara Toole's Clay Art Studio at 50 Liberty Street, multicolored fish swim to greet you. Ablue giraffe lolls around, a lion watches you warily, and a porcupine ambles on its way. Have you gone on safari or a deep sea diving trip? No, you are visiting the whimsical world of Barbara Toole's pottery family.

ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent

Toole has been working with clay for 35 years. "I had just moved to San Francisco and was newly married," she explained. "I think I was pregnant with my first child and I had to quit work because I was sick. I started taking this pottery class, and that was it. I just kept on taking classes."

Toole raised her family, summering on Nantucket. She worked in the clothing industry, owned a restaurant, had four children, but always came back to pottery. In 1994 she purchased the house on 50 Liberty St. and built her Clay Art Studio.

Toole's pottery runs the gamut from serene earthen plates and mugs to Nantucket bowls and coffee mugs, on to a family of animals worthy of Dr. Doolittle. Her animals are bright and colorful, a look she achieves by painting on her glazes as opposed to dipping them. "I brush all my glazes on so I can get a lot of different sorts of techniques," she remarked when explaining her fish. "I love a lot of textures and I love color. As much as I love the more earthy look, I like them both, but color is exciting to me. It's happy and it makes you smile. Also I love making these animals. Can you see that big blue giraffe? I started with the penguins and then I went to the fish, and then I went to the animals."

Her penguins converge together, waddling to question your reason for appearing in their space. She began her animal quest with the penguins, a journey that started as a present for her son-in-law. "My daughter called me a couple of years ago and said, 'Mom, you know it's Mark birthday soon. You know he loves penguins. Why don't you make him a penguin?' I had never made any such creature in my life. I make bowls and mugs! I said 'Penguins?' I hung up the phone, went online and copied penguin forms and pictures, came into the studio and made my first penguin." Toole's constant smile brightens a bit as she gazes at the penguin family. "I made three of them, sent him one, and then I made a dozen more. And then she actually, the same daughter, said something about fish. I said, 'Fish?' And then I started making all these fish. I give them all names. They all have names. Even the penguins have names. That's Gerry the blue giraffe."

Toole's animals each have a soul, a personality, a unique feeling that comes from Toole's attention to detail. The clay animals come alive in her talented hands, walking out of the kiln and into her studio like a modern day Pinocchio. Toole is always learning, finding new ways to work the clay, letting it speak to her and guide her. "I work alone. I'm in here all winter working. I go every year to Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine, and I take a workshop with visiting artists. There's always somebody new teaching their technique, and usually I know who they are and what they teach, and it's why I choose them. And so I pick up some of their style, some of their techniques, some of their glazes, some of their firing methods."

Toole makes wheel-thrown Nantucket mugs and bowls, dinner plates, vases and teapots. All of her plateware and mugs are meant to be used, and she guarantees them. Her whimsy does not stop with her animal kingdom, however, but crosses over into her utilitarian pieces. A blue and purple teapot and cups look like they just returned from a tea party with the Mad Hatter. "This was from another workshop about four years ago," she explained when asked about the teapot. "I made two of these, and this is all handbuilt. We couldn't even touch the wheel, and there were a lot of wheelthrowers who didn't want to handbuild! So this is the artist's style of working. You can see that it is all like strips of slab, and the same with the cups. I loved this workshop! I made [a group of canisters] here in the studio after I came back from this workshop. Those are all hand formed. Those are all slabs."

Toole cannot say where her art will lead her next, to more animals or to unique tiles. "I push myself when the occasion arises," she remarks. "I have a certain way of working that I love, and that's sort of free form. I love working with slabs, and most of my handbuilding is done with slabs. I just love discovering and just finding different ways of making texture and making things work for me." Her animal family nods in approval, agreeing with her, smiling at their creator and

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- Barbara Toole's pottery can be seen on her Web site at www.clayartstudio. com, or at her studio at 50 N. Liberty St. Her annual holiday sale will be held this Friday, December 7 and Saturday, December 8 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at her Clay Art Studio.