Kim Clarke has a unique relationship with the ceramics she creates. She started out creating artsy fairy females and green men, but she discovered interesting little faces coming though the clay. Now she allows those faces to express how they want to be seen. While this may seem a little odd, Michelangelo first expressed this concept when he said that his job as a sculptor was to free the form that was already inside the stone.

Kim’s whimsical, fantasy figures are not created to be commercial images though people often say her works remind them of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. She sees them as evolving and continuing to get better. The individual works speak to the eye of the beholder, such as the one with an opening in the top of her head with a bird sitting inside. I heard one observer say, “Oh that’s me. A birdbrain!” She told of one person observing one of her people who was sure it was his chiropractor.

Lately Kim’s figures have found their way into different modes of transportation, frequently in groups. You may find one on a fish or a snail, or several figures together in a sled or a wagon. You can easily image a little story that goes along with each piece. Kim days stories come to her as she is sculpting her little guys, but she generally likes the viewers to conjure their own stories to reflect the feelings they have when they see where the figures are and what they are up to.

Kim uses whatever clay she has on hand when she’s working that will fire to a white color. Then she uses glazes to create the beautiful colors on her pieces, but since her work is strictly decorative, she also sometimes uses acrylic paint or sharpies to enhance how they look. Her favorite tool to create with is a wooden bamboo skewer. She fires her work to cone five, which means that they will last forever. She smiles as she contemplates what some future archeologists will think about how what our culture must have been like when they did up her work.

Kim loves to pay it forward by teaching classes at the Simi Valley Senior Center where she teaches technique and then allows her students to work on individual projects that will each be different. Kim has studio space at Art and Soul Studios on Laurel Street in Ventura, and is an active member of the Ventura County Potter’s Guild.

Enjoy these videos with Kim.

Girl with clock
7 inches tall

$110

Boat with Star Gazer
7 inches tall

$110

Tree Couple
11 inches tall

$200

Bunny Dude
5 inches tall

$85

Snails

Small 2 inches tall $45

Large 7 inches tall $95