Studio Visit: Michelle Gregor and Françoise LeClerc, Petaluma, California Michelle Gregor and Françoise LeClerc

Appears in the October 2024 issue of Ceramics Monthly.

Just the Facts

Clay
IMCO Sculpture Mix 412, Aardvark Papel Paperclay, Laguna Bob’s/Max’s Paperclays, and whatever is on sale

Primary forming method
solid-built sculpture, cut open and hollowed at leather hard

Primary firing temperature
cone 5/6

Favorite surface treatment
underglazes, Mason stains, oxides

Favorite tools
Gregor: giant needle tool made by
John Toki. LeClerc: ladder (thanks, Tip Toland) and reference photos.

Playlist
audiobooks (fiction and non) and all the usual NPR suspects (Fresh Air, RadioLab, This American Life, etc.)

Wishlist
front-loading kiln, more working space

Studio

Our studio is a circa-1915 redwood barn, 20x20 feet (6x6 m), which, when we first got here, had no utilities and leaked like a sieve. We added a concrete kiln pad and shed roof off one side. We are currently using salvaged wood windows and French doors to enclose the kiln pad, while still allowing in light and ventilation when firing. The studio is uninsulated, so it can be cold in the winter and hot in the summer, but for the most part, northern California is temperate, so it’s manageable.

Because of Michelle’s highly color-intensive surfaces, we keep a whole wall dedicated to storing stains, pigments, glazes, oxides, etc. The shelves for these jars don’t need to be deep, in fact, shallower is better, so you can see everything without digging around. Our 2x4 stud bays are perfect for the task.

We have two kilns, one gas and one electric, although we use the electric one almost exclusively. The gas kiln is an old dinosaur from the 1960s that is very difficult to keep on low and slow, which is necessary for firing thicker sculptural pieces.

We are both interested in a bunch of different media (painting, printmaking, collage, woodworking, cyanotype, etc.), so it can be challenging to keep all the different materials organized and clean, especially when ceramics is part of the ecosystem. No matter how much studio space one has, one always wants more. It’s like how certain reptiles or aquarium fish will just keep growing until they max out their tank.

The studio sits on two acres of land that we share with our small flock of sheep and chickens. Sometimes, especially in the spring, it can be a bit of a balancing act allocating work hours to the studio and to all the tasks that need to be completed around the farm. The seasons wait for no (wo)man.

Paying Dues (and Bills)

Gregor: After finishing my MFA in sculpture from San Francisco State, I opened my own production pottery business, making functional dinnerware, as well as taking on architectural commissions for ceramic building facades, fountains, tile work, etc. I took adjunct teaching gigs on the side, never intending to become a tenured professor. But the timing was good and when the head of the ceramics program at San Jos. City College retired, I was hired to take over his position there. I’m very fortunate that it turned out to be a great fit, and has allowed me to pursue my own artistic practice concurrently.

LeClerc: I have no formal education in ceramics. My background is in filmmaking, and I spent the first part of my career in Hollywood working at a large talent agency. It was a very good place to pay dues in that it toughened me up in a lot of ways. The corporate pressure-cooker culture was sometimes stressful, but I learned to take action. The work isn’t going to get done by itself. You also learn to seek and reach out to people.

Marketing

Gregor: I sell almost all my work through galleries. It’s really important to maintain a regular visual presence on social media to support your gallery exposure. I also hold workshops a couple of times a year for people of all skill levels who are interested in figurative sculpture, loosening up their own work, or exploring new surface techniques.

LeClerc: Michelle is way better than I am at keeping up a good frequency of posts to Instagram, etc. I find that taking lots of photos in spurts and keeping a sort of storehouse of them is helpful. Also, find a good photographer for your finished work. Our friend, J. Jones, documents our pieces, and his pictures are essential to communicating our work to galleries and collectors. A well-lit, accurate photo conveys tone and texture and can make all the difference. 

Further to that, as far as finding gallery representation goes, do your research. Make a list of your favorite artists and find out who shows their work. Google those gallerists, and find out what the common thread is in their taste. Have a reason why you’re approaching a given gallery (Thematic? Aesthetic? Why are you a good fit for each other?). The selling of art is an endeavor predicated on a certain amount of rejection, so you have to be able to tolerate that. Don’t be intimidated to submit work, if it works out, it will be mutually beneficial. Art critic Jerry Saltz made a great point when he spoke at NCECA a few years ago. I’m paraphrasing, but he asked the audience, “When you go to a museum or a gallery, and you look around, what percentage of the art really grabs you, and you really connect with it and love it? Maybe 10%? Maybe 5%? The rest you might feel neutral toward, or might not speak to you at all. So if that’s how you feel about most art, there’s no reason to be daunted if you get some rejections when submitting your work. You just have to keep submitting (and improving) until you find your 10%.”

Mind

Gregor: A key for me is remaining open to an improvisational approach. I do not have a predetermined outcome when I start a piece. Allowing chance to have a part is important because often what happens is even better than something I could intentionally conceive. Here’s where experience and knowing your material comes in. You can create conditions and juxtapositions without trying to micro-manage every detail. I observe how color will respond to texture and to the colors adjacent to it. The only way to completely know what will happen is to do it. Then, I respond to what I see. Pay attention and know when to stop. Avoid overworking areas that you like. 

Conversely, if something is not working in a sculpture, don’t be afraid to make big moves. Cut off big chunks and move them around. It’s clay! You can’t be afraid to destroy a mediocre piece just because you have put hours into it. Be bold. If you lose the piece, make it again from the beginning. The second (third, fourth) will often be better.

LeClerc: We joke that I’m almost the opposite of Michelle in my approach. I work on pipe armatures and have dimensioned/scaled drawings to help diagnose proportion errors. I have to cut my horses off the armatures at leather hard when the clay is set up enough to support the weight of the piece, but is still wet enough to tolerate being hollowed out and reassembled. Using paper clay provides more strength at the greenware stage, but the legs are inherently thin and fragile. Losing a lot of pieces to breakage has been humbling, but I think has ultimately made me better.

I also think sketching is useful. There’s something about flipping your brain between 2D and 3D that feels like good exercise. It helps you learn to see. We visited France a few years ago and learned that Rodin (primarily a sculptor) would draw to better understand the subjects he wanted to sculpt and Degas (primarily a painter) would sculpt small wax maquettes of the racehorses he would later paint.

We are both voracious museum fans. We often go mid-morning, bring our sketchbooks, sketch until lunch, eat at the museum cafe, and look and sketch through the afternoon. 

I’m also a bit of a Pinterest addict. Pro: I discover new artists and techniques, and it functions like a big journal or archive so I can find things again. Con: More screen time.

Most Important Lesson

LeClerc: Look at good work. As much and as often as you can. In person, if possible. Museums, gallery openings, fairs, conferences. Art doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The more good work you can see and internalize, the better. Be influenced. Notice what you like (and dislike) and ask yourself why. Bring a friend and have conversations about this over coffee afterward. 

If you feel yourself unsatisfied with your own current work, that’s a good thing! It means you have taste and are reaching. Keep going. Iterate. Ira Glass has a great two-minute video about this on YouTube called “On the Creative Process.”

Also, in my experience, it’s better to do a high volume of work, rather than focus too laboriously on a few pieces. Especially when you’re a beginner. I heard a story of a college-level ceramics teacher who told one section of his beginning wheel-throwing class that they would be graded on a single piece of their choice at the end of the semester. He told the other section that they’d be graded solely on the number of pounds of clay thrown. At the end of the semester, the students who threw and threw and threw without as much attachment to the finished product had a much better feel and muscle memory. A certain naturalness. By contrast, the students who fussed over just a handful of pieces in the same period didn’t know the material as well or have the same faculty with it. Don’t be too precious. It’s not one-and-done. Approach the same idea many times. Observe what changes.

Gregor: Don’t talk yourself out of ideas because you don’t think they’ll work out. In other words, don’t create problems or anticipate impossibilities before they actually occur. Does clay have its physical limitations? Yes. Might there be challenges to executing what you have in mind? Yes. But go ahead and try it. Solve the problems as they arise. With some tenacity, you can usually find a workaround, but if you dismiss the idea too early, it never has a chance.

www.michellegregor.com, www.francoiseleclerc.com 
Instagram: @michellegregor, @francoise_leclerc_art