Alice Huang Hollowed
You would never know from Alice Huang Hollowed’s refined pottery that it took her years to be able to center clay on the wheel.
Alice Huang Hollowed (1976, Batesville, Mississippi) took a shining to the single, lonely pottery wheel in her high school art department. The school’s gym teacher (who doubled as the art teacher) taught her how to throw, but was unable to help her center. It was an old arm injury that kept her from getting this crucial technique down. Years later at Gallery Park West in Chicago, Jay Strommen, a fellow ceramicist (and founder of the Chicago Ceramic Center) suggested she reverse the direction of the wheel. This simple change empowered her to center the clay efficiently enough to be able to throw a cup in three minutes flat!
Hollowed’s background in chemistry and education (Northwestern University, 1998) has served her well throughout her artistic life. She taught LSPS-LC’s weekend kids class on-and-off for nearly a decade. Her students kept her on her toes- by taking chances and thinking outside the box. Her favorite projects were a teapot using the pinch method, and a slab-based vase with snowflake designs for the Holidays. Both were done with great fanfare and within one class period- a big success for kids of varying ages and attention spans. Their energy made its way into her own pieces, and she hasn’t been afraid to try new techniques because of them.
Hollowed’s chemistry background has both been a curse and a blessing when it comes to her clay practice. Because it is extremely difficult to reproduce the exact same surface result each time a new piece is fired, the artist keeps things simple. She admires other artists’ glaze work that takes a turn in the unexpected, but likes to stay consistent with her own pieces. Because a firing can radically affect the glaze on even just one piece, she generally sticks to clear or bare surfaces. Within the last year Hollowed has gotten hooked on colored clays after receiving a gift card from the studio’s owner, Meg Biddle. The artist purchased some stain-colored porcelain, which she would layer, gently wedge and use on the wheel. The end results are high-contrast marbled swirls that entice the eye. Hollowed’s favorite part of this process is taking a loop tool to the greenware cup and carving shallow impressions that show off the incredible patterns. It’s this big reveal and the soothing symmetry that makes her come back to the technique. Hollowed has recently added a punch of colored glaze to the inside of these pieces- creating jewel toned beauties that sold out at the studio’s last art fair booth!
Hollowed’s love of precision and art bleeds over into her home life as well. On top of home-schooling her four bright and creative children, she’s been known to spin and dye her own wool which she sells along side the yarn bowls she creates at the studio. The process of dying wool is especially satisfying to her because the colors she chooses for the fiber actually come out as predicted (unlike glazes and clay which look nothing like the final product during their creation). Hollowed has also taken on growing silk worms, sometimes going through the painstaking process of extracting and threading, other times simply working with the cocoons. Along with these intense hobbies, Hollowed raises chickens, bakes, spent many years on the Welles Park Baseball Board, takes her kids to an assortment of extra-curricular activities AND is one of the studio’s most attentive volunteers.
Although Hollowed herself plays down how much she does to keep LSPS-LC running smoothly, those who frequent the studio notice how much she does for the non-profit. When she catches a free minute in between her plethora of responsibilities, she can be found loading kilns, recycling clay or mixing glazes. Freshly laundered towels and pies baked in studio-made pie plates consistently show up under the radar. Hollowed has taken on these tasks in part to learn and challenge herself, the other because she takes pride in the studio and the sense of community it gives her. She also stepped up and taught a number of evening classes while the studio’s owner was on medical leave. All in all, the business owes a lot to her commitment and is lucky to have her!
Although the pandemic has slowed down Hollowed’s usual productivity, she’s still playing with clay at home. She’s reconstituted old clay by drying it out in her oven, then re-hydrating it and wedging it into shape. She’s made 100 book tiles, mugs and plates, all of which are boxed up so that they’re not accidentally broken by kids, a dog or cat (maybe even a chicken). When the artist thinks of what she wants to do when the studio opens back up, it’s less about her than getting things up and running again. Kiln loading and finishing the glaze sample wall are on the top of her list. We’re thrilled she wants to get us up to snuff, but can’t wait for her to be able to get back to the wheel and center the heck out of some clay!