by Bella Erakko
Rarely does one think of pottery as “floating” or “soft” in appearance, but Veronica Sandercock’s ceramic pieces do just that. They soar in an invitingly gentle way. Veronica starts with a solid pottery foundation—the base is thrown using the traditional potter’s wheel. But then she uses a coil technique to build the free form image that viewers are so attracted to, adding decorative balls and dots as focal points. Or she may imprint images into the clay slab. She calls her work “spontaneous free form.” She adds, “I love working with glazes, seeing what goes together, be it matte, gloss, satin. Some flow; some don’t.” But working with porcelain, the finest-grained clay, guarantees that there are many ways, she admits, for the piece to collapse or break.
Graduating with a studio art degree, she taught for many years but as retirement approached a few years back, she started transitioning into being a full-time artist. The daughter of a mother who danced and a daughter who writes, creativity flows generationally through this family.
With full-time teaching behind her, Veronica today teaches us how functionality and beauty intertwine to give us a pause, a moment, to simply enjoy.
