PORT TOWNSEND — Anne Hirondelle will present an overview of her life’s work in ceramics at the Jefferson Museum of Art & History at 2 p.m. Sunday.
Hirondelle’s lecture complements the museum’s current exhibit, “Pat and Peter Simpson: Collectors and Patrons,” which features her work along with other Port Townsend artists from the Simpsons’ collection. The Simpson exhibit will run another month at the museum at 540 Water St. before closing.
A donation of $5 is requested.
Hirondelle will present a PowerPoint survey of the past 30 years of her work and how it evolved. Hirondelle’s earlier pieces are recognizable as vessels but function as metaphors rather than containers. Her work became increasingly abstract. Eventually, she stopped using glazes and instead painted her pieces using intense colors.
Her drawings, which were originally used to design her work, took a path parallel to her ceramics from function to independent abstractions. Derived from the ceramic forms, they are drawn with graphite and colored pencil on multiple layers of tracing paper.
“People frequently ask me where do I get my ideas. I get my ideas from my work. It’s just like one thing follows the next and it’s a combination of the ceramic forms and drawings,” Hirondelle said.
Hirondelle studied at the University of Washington. She moved to Port Townsend in 1977.
“My real work, and when I really found my own way, was after we moved here,” Hirondelle said.
Her work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout the U.S., most recently the Hallie Ford Museum this past spring and the Seattle Art Museum Sales and Retail Gallery in June.
Starting in September, she’ll have an exhibit and workshop at Peninsula College in Port Angeles.
