Artist - Margot Vrana

Work Available at Amphora
Sculpture

Artist Statement
Margot has been a painter and sculptor her whole life. She’s worked in paint, wood, stone, metal, and photography; but clay is where her heart is. She is past 94 and still sculpting. While studying art at Cooper Union in New York City early in her career, she carved her first goddess fertility figure in stone. In the ensuing years, she has often revisited this form in its many variations. She painted miniatures as a street artist in Greenwich Village in the 1950s, and has shown paintings and sculptures in a variety of venues over the years. Margot studied sculpture with Ben Goo at ASU, then with Barry Franz at Cuesta College, SLO, and graduated from Cal Poly SLO.

In the early 1960s, she spent a couple of years living in the small town of Boulder, Wyoming. While there, she dug clay from the banks of a lake in lake in the mountains and started a small sculpture group among the ranching families. They fired their works by setting them on the baffles of the big oil heating stove and turning the heat up high. Through the 1990s and beyond Margot lived in Baja, Mexico, where she pit-fired her pieces. Now that she’s back in the States, gas kilns do the job.

Margot says, “When I model earth goddesses in stoneware clay, my hands and heart feel fulfilled, inspired somehow. I believe the figures are imbued with the earth spirit. I know they are imbued with love.”