Charmaine Rogers
Charmaine Rogers (Northbrook, 1985) has several passions in life; ceramics and being a stylist are just two of them.
Charmaine Rogers felt so at home in her high school ceramics classes that she would often sneak into the studio while she was suppose to be at less interesting courses. Because wheel throwing was not taught much, so she would coil build tall vessels. The pieces, which would take hours to build and perfect, were inspired by thrown works. Around the same time as her love of clay was developing, the budding artist also managed to get a job at carolynlorrainesalon in her hometown. She worked her way up from giving shampoos to manager. Rogers loved watching the stylists be creative with hair, and decided to attend beauty school after she graduated. She was able to do her internship at the salon, and will subsequently be celebrating her 20th anniversary of employment there this year!
Before we get into Rogers’ abilities with glazes at Lincoln Square Pottery Studio – Learning Center, it’s important to understand her relationship to all things color. During her time at beauty school, she discovered that the color wheel was deeply embedded in her psyche. All those art classes during high school really left an impression! She was able to transfer her knowledge to her work as a stylist. She loves combining color theory, picking up slight hue variants, and playing with underlying pigments. Working with hair involves volume, texture, and the ability to sculpt. The Balayage technique of coloring, which is free-hand painting of highlights into the hair, gives Rogers a freedom of expression that she adores. Rogers’ past living space has been described as “the amazing Technicolor apartment” by friends. To say she likes to be surrounded by colorful visual stimulus would be an understatement.
Friends who knew Rogers well took her to Penguin Foot Studio for her bachelorette party in 2016. She was so excited to get her hands back into clay that she didn’t want to get off the wheel and celebrate her upcoming nuptials! She knew then that she needed to get back into ceramics. In 2019, while doing the hair of a long-time client, she overheard her telling a friend they needed to attend a class at LSPS-LC. Rogers got so excited about the possibility of getting back to pottery, she interrupted the conversation and invited herself along!
Rogers and her client joined the Tuesday night class, which is the intermediate level. Rogers said she struggled at the beginning- the session’s topic was “challenges” and she couldn’t remember how to throw! She credits Meg Biddle, the instructor, with giving her buckets of help and patience during those first two months. She was not only able to create functional vessels, but a full set of matching bowls. This inspired her to become more dedicated to her artwork.
As soon as Rogers had a handle on producing pieces that were up to her standards, she started eyeing the glazes and their potential. Her passion for pigments took over, and she started seeing her work as a canvas to experiment on. The artist detests plain surface treatment, and gets excited when the kiln does its magic and produces unusual results. Her mugs and planters feature thick applications of slip around the edges, which catches the glaze in a drippy show of color. As with her stylist job, undertones are much sought after. You can tell a piece is by Rogers because of the way the glaze breaks during firing, and the hues that shine through those layers. Rogers likes testing the glazes on different clay bodies, which can produce anything from speckles to pearlescent results. Depending on the light, you’ll be able to catch a variety of tones that are permanently caught in the recesses of her pieces. The artist uses commercial glazes to draw out these unique combinations of colors. Rogers also likes creating pipes and yarn bowls along with her tumblers and planters.
Rogers took part in several art events in 2019 and received a lot of interest in her work. She was excited to sell in larger outdoor fairs in the Chicago area this summer, but that’s been put on hold due to the pandemic. She’ll take the time to expand her series and focus on selling through Instagram and possibly Etsy. So far her sales have covered all her class expenses, and she hopes this will continue until the creative economy opens up and she can expand her business. Her perfect work/life balance would include being creative at both her salon and at the studio, with plenty of hours to dabble in color at both!