Tina Curry: A Gift of Horse Sense D Wood

Appears in the September 2022 issue of Ceramics Monthly.

Queen Elizabeth II, on the occasion of her 96th birthday in April 2022, was honored by the Royal Windsor Horse Show with a photograph. The Queen stands between two of her fell ponies, holding the reins of Bybeck Katie and Bybeck Nightingale, on the grounds of Windsor Castle. Queen Elizabeth started riding lessons at the age of three and got her first pony when she was four. Photos taken throughout the monarch’s life show her riding horses even in her 90s. 

Being a princess is not a prerequisite for loving horses. Tina Curry, who grew up in suburban Tennessee, begged her parents for a pony. She didn’t live on a farm or an estate, but there was room enough in the family’s backyard that her mother and uncle arranged for a pony and shed to take up residence. While Tina’s father objected, worried that his six-year-old daughter would get hurt, her persisting interest in and care for her pony, Peanut, persuaded him that Tina was a horsewoman. 

A life-long association with horses provokes qualities, apart from bravery, perseverance, and confidence, that endure. An article in The Equine Chronicle notes: 

Most people that enjoy and respect animals have a certain warm and fuzzy spot in their hearts. Caring for horses, loving them and being loved in return, is a special feeling that teaches children about kindness and unconditional love . . . Looking out for the health of one’s horse means caring enough to observe and listen to another living being.¹ 

This may apply to the British Queen and is certainly true for Tina Curry. Her observations of other living beings are the focus of her ceramics.

On the Range

It goes without saying—Tina has sculpted and cast many horses. Her first clay sculpture was a human head (portraiture) after which she taught herself how to create horses and other animals because no formal training was available. Yet, the signature piece on curryoriginals.com is a pair of river otters whose rendition is the result of careful observation and understanding. 

Otters have been characterized as playful and curious; their cuteness makes them ideal to anthropomorphize for children’s books or Valentine’s Day cards. By contrast, Tina’s otters are as close to life-like as it’s possible to be, except for their lack of clay whiskers. Their water-resistant fur is slicked close to the body as if they’d just climbed out of the water; webbed paws and long, thick tails verify their being aquatic creatures. The otters look about, their dark eyes scanning for danger and their noses sniff the breeze. These animals are authentic mammals, attractive because their very reality has been captured in clay.

Curry says, “I would see an animal and think: how can I translate that animal, that live thing, into a clay piece so that somebody would look at it, know what it was and get the same feeling that I did when I saw it as a living creature?” She starts with photographs of animals in a natural or zoo habitat, with multiple views that are references for sculpting in the round. Curry notes, “It’s good if you can take your own photos so you see how animals move, how they act—these help you understand. Starting with this, you can stylize after they’re made.” She encourages her students to study animal forms and characteristics and is becoming more familiar with anatomy for her own work. 

A jackrabbit—taxonomically a hare, not a rabbit—is also one of Tina’s subjects. Unlike the otters, which are portrayed as vigilant and still for only a moment, the hare seems exhausted, maybe even elderly. Its ears, characteristically pointing straight up, are sound detectors as well as temperature regulators, except here they belie the rest of its stance: the belly rests on the ground supported by front paws. It has been caught in a contemplative moment. Jackrabbits are tan, gray, brown, or black, tones that camouflage them in their arid habitat. Tina’s sand-colored specimen with textured neck fur sits in customary solitude. Any human traits it conveys are of the observer’s making. 

The cuteness factor is not a selection criterion. Walk on the Wild Side is about Curry facing her fears. “The closest I will get to facing my fear of iguanas is forming them on a clay pot,” she says. “I am truly fascinated with the way they leisurely stroll, the texture patterns of their scales, their ability to blend into the forest canopy. I reserve a week or so every couple of years to face my fear. I sit down and detail each scale, the spines on the back and their long, clawed feet.” Rather than look away, she tries to know the animal intimately.

In the Saddle

How did Curry’s notion of transferring her sensitivity for animals to clay come about? Surprisingly, not via the BFA/MFA route. Curry explains, “When I went to college, my goal was to be a writer and illustrate children’s books. I loved writing, I loved poetry, I loved sketching to go with stories. But that’s not exactly what I did! Instead, that background helped me to do what I do now because it’s still story-telling but in three dimensions.” After graduating with a BA from the University of Florida, she was hired as a graphic designer by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the largest multi-program science and energy research lab in the US. She was responsible for marketing for the facility and for certain researchers. She relished the immense variety the job entailed, “It varied from very technical information when scientists were trying to get patents or funding for their research to a lab celebration or award night, magazine articles, any type of marketing communication. The work was always interesting because you never knew from day to day what project you were going get.” She worked there for 35 years.

During this time, one of Curry’s colleagues suggested that they needed some fun and should take a night class in clay. He backed out, but she stayed—four weeks of handbuilding and four weeks of wheel throwing. “I liked the handbuilding and then we switched to wheel throwing and that was such a challenge,” she says.
“I thought, it’s not gonna beat me, so I tried throwing on the wheel for two years, getting more and more frustrated.” She felt unworthy as a potter because she couldn’t master the wheel. Fortunately, her instructor, Bill Capshaw, at Oak Ridge Art Center, recognized her frustration as well as the fact that she was good with her hands. He was a thrower, painter, handbuilder, and designer but since no one else in the facility did handbuilding, it did not occur to Curry to follow in Capshaw’s footsteps. When the penny dropped, she realized that the switch to concentration on handbuilding “made me happy.” 

Curry emulated Capshaw by creating African masks and then started playing with sculpture. “I would see pieces, but I didn’t really understand how to build them and make them sustainable,” she says. “So, I eventually took a portraiture class. My first pieces were portraits of people and that really intrigued me and made me think about clay in a different way. Analyzing proportion and anatomy make the piece what it’s supposed to be or what you want it to be.” Curry’s favorite is Ghosthunter, wherein a blending of Asian, African, Caucasian, and Native American descents is evident. This piece’s ghostliness implies that he’s an ideal, something that is ethereal and to be strived for. Another recent portrait is the White Rabbit from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. This character is the first of six from the Lewis Carroll story that will eventually be cast in bronze. Curry becomes philosophical, “Alice follows the white rabbit down the rabbit hole even though she doesn’t know where it will lead. Sometimes my art does the same for me.”

Curry’s pottery instruction began in 1991. She retired from the Oak Ridge Lab in 2018 to devote herself to a clay practice that now includes commissions, a once-a-year trip to the Craft Fair of the Southern Highlands in Asheville, North Carolina, and teaching.

The Derby

Commissions are a challenge that Curry enjoys. Her first major client was Zoo Knoxville. The zoo gave clay sculptures as gifts to people who were retiring or receiving an award. The animal chosen would be a favorite of the recipient, with different individual types being requested each year. Then, she got a call from further north: “The Calgary Zoo [Alberta, Canada] saw my work and they were interested in doing something similar. However, their concept was a combination of animals.” Each year the administrators in Calgary gave her three animals—a zebra, black and white lemur, panda—to be configured into awards that were significant yet humorous. “Even if they ordered twelve, I had to do a different combination of these animals for each.” Curry spent four or five years doing that and was subsequently asked for individual sculptures for certain people. For example, a meerkat for someone who was retiring. But Curry points out, “It’s not a photograph. My personality is in the piece. And I think that’s what they’re attracted to because it’s not something you would see on a shelf somewhere.”

As her reputation grew, Curry was asked to teach at craft schools and privately. At Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, in November 2021, she began her one-week class with guidance in carving a bird or animal profile on a clay tile. She provided reference photographs to inspire designs and after the finished tiles dried for several days, they were put in an electric kiln. The next assignment was a three-dimensional creature. Several students chose chimpanzees. The clay was molded around a newspaper armature and props held up paws. Then, as Curry says, came the hard part, “People gasp that they’re gonna have to cut open something that they’ve spent all this time putting together. But if they do it once, they understand.” Cutting a section of clay from the back of the sculpture and pulling out the paper allows viewing inside to mend air bubbles and pockets and ensure that the structure is sound. The alternative, solid clay, is a waste of material and takes longer to dry. Once students were comfortable with cutting and mending their first creations, they went on to make very realistic elephants including one that was caricatured to resemble Walt Disney’s Dumbo.

The chimpanzees, elephants, and other animals needed to dry naturally for a couple of weeks, which meant that the final day of the Arrowmont session was spent carefully packing the precious creatures and making notes about what should happen when time came for firing and finishing using alternative firing techniques or glazes and stains. Many of Curry’s pieces are bisque fired, followed by a barrel firing that uses natural elements and/or carbon to color the pieces. Traditional glazes are not used. Curry’s experience provides her with a mental catalog of possibilities, “I know what elements will bring certain colorations. I know that dried banana peels create yellow tints; dried coffee grounds will put dark coloration into my clay pieces. It’s not an exact process because it’s a combination of many things—the materials, the heat, where it’s placed in the metal can, and closeness to the fire. Opening it up is like Christmas morning!” She points out that you have to continue to do a process until you understand it and have some control over where it’s going. Her suggestion is to experiment with natural materials or chemicals (like expired vitamins) until a palette of tones can be repeated and built upon. Perhaps being among scientists at the Oak Ridge Laboratory spawned Curry’s willingness to investigate alternative substances and firings.

Horses have always been her favorite subject, so equine sculptures predominate in her portfolio. Most commonly they are stylized horses, first created in 2011 because she wanted to try three-dimensional shapes that had soulful movement without all the detail (eyes, mouth, etc.). They have been fired to look like marble. This is achieved by draping individual horse hairs onto the surface of the scorching clay. Curry collects horse hair and one could say that the laying on of its strands is a labor of love—her love of horses.

The Winner’s Circle

Curry’s studio is in her home in Knoxville, Tennessee, but she still spends time at the Oak Ridge Art Center. She reflects on the many ways to learn, “I realized a long time ago, you can’t be in a bubble. It’s so refreshing to be around people who are doing their own work and learning from each other, sharing ideas about types of clay or how to fire something or a particular structure. I think you need that community atmosphere to continue to learn.” She adds that the social atmosphere takes the seriousness and isolation out of what you’re doing. Being able to brainstorm or bounce crazy ideas off a like-minded companion works wonders for your state of mind and inspires excitement in the solitary studio. Recognizing the strength and weakness in others and valuing each contribution comes from that caring to observe and listen to living beings.

Curry’s community includes the state in which she was born and lives. In 2021, she was selected from among artists across Tennessee to design and create the Governor’s Arts Awards. The biennial awards are Tennessee’s highest honor in the arts, recognizing individuals and organizations that have made significant contributions to the state’s arts or cultural life. She says, “Not only did I have to think out of the box to create something that was an award and representative of my unique style, but I also had to create fifteen identical sculptures. And if you handbuild, you know that this was a challenging task! I was proud of the results and consider the awards one of my greatest accomplishments.”

Tina Curry is also on the Board of Governors at Arrowmont. As the demographic of part-time art schools changes, their mandates must adapt. Curry’s presence represents new blood and a fresh perspective. Yet the craving to get to know more animals to add to her repertoire takes priority. She wants to visit Australia because of its unique fauna—platypuses, wallabies, echidnas, and dingoes. Africa, too, is on her list, to experience, in person, the twitch of a hippo’s ears or the grace of an eland. These encounters and moments are rich treasures, the search for which began with Peanut in her own back yard. 

1 Jaimie Tucker, “Why Horses are Good for Little Girls,” The Equine Chronicle, 1 Apr. 2021.

the author D Wood has a PhD in design studies and is an independent craft scholar whose artist profiles and exhibition reviews have appeared in an international roster of art and design publications. She is the editor of and contributor to Craft is Political (Bloomsbury, 2021).