By Stefene Russell
Photos by Susan Jackson
“In ancient Greece, there were people who made pottery—and then there were people who painted it. So in a way, we’re following that tradition,” says Patty Sheppard. She and her husband, Mark, are standing in their impossibly clean basement studio, where Patty seems to have discovered some magical way of keeping clay from splattering anywhere. This is where she throws her lovely, streamlined plates, bowls, pitchers, cups and saucers, and where Mark paints otherwordly images on them.
After throwing a piece, Patty paints a band of underglaze on it, usually in royal blue, oak green, mulberry or black, then lightly scratches a sgraffitto pattern in it. Mark, whose first medium is painting, then uses the same color of underglaze and a sharp, fine brush to paint a scene in the belly of a bowl or the exterior of a pitcher.
“I look at a lot of painters from the Renaissance,” he says. “A lot of the northern ones—Dürer and Bruegel—but I also like Goya and Daumier.”
He adds that he likes to give the pictures a narrative feel, even if he didn’t have a particular story in mind when he painted the piece of pottery.
“We often do fairy-tale or fable-related imagery,” Mark says. “We have a five-year-old son,” Patty adds, “so the fables and the story imagery have been popping up a lot lately because of that.”
But the imagery isn’t clichéd; no wicked witches or princesses in cone hats, but rather jesters, skunks and well-fed old kings. Mark says that prepping for their first art fair, they worked on dozens of pieces and didn’t overthink the imagery, which was in some cases, odd.
“But people really responded to it,” Patty says. “We do a lot of skunks, possums and rats—not cute animals, which is what you would think people would want. But once we did possums, we realized that’s what people want—that, and odd-looking characters.”
Though their bowls and plates are works of art, the Sheppards feel strongly about wanting to make their pottery functional.
“Being so decorative, a lot of people don’t eat off our plates, but we do,” Patty says. “I want these pieces to be usable, so you can put them in the dishwasher! Our production process takes a little longer than traditional dinnerware … but they’ll last forever. Mark does drawings and paintings, and people respond to those too, but there’s something about being able to use the art for something.”
The Sheppards’ work will be on display at the Schlafly Art Outside Fair on September 8 and 9, at the Kemper Arts Center through September 23, and at ARTstravaganza! at the St. Louis Artists’ Guild in Oak Knoll Park in Clayton, October 27–29; hours are Friday 4–9 p.m. (moonlight reception), Saturday 10 a.m.–5 p.m. and Sunday 11 a.m.–4 p.m. For more information about their work, visit the Best of Missouri Hands' website.
