🎧 Wesley Anderegg: The Wild, Wild West D Wood

Appears in the April 2025 issue of Ceramics Monthly.

 

The audio file for this article was produced by the Ceramic Arts Network staff and not read by the author.

John B. Stetson was born in New Jersey in 1830, the seventh of twelve children. He worked in his father’s hatting business until being diagnosed with tuberculosis, causing doctors to advise heading west. Stetson got as far as Missouri, where he owned a brick factory, which can’t have been good for his lungs, then moved on to the gold fields of Colorado. Legend has it that torrential rain provoked Stetson to create a lightweight felt hat capable of withstanding sun and precipitation, as well as serving as a bucket when necessary. The success of his alternative to the usual flea-infested coonskin cap led to relocation to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he set up a workshop in 1865 with money borrowed from his sister.¹ As they say, the rest is history. 

Cowboy hats have been worn by Presidents Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush, and actors playing roles in oaters. Country singer Lyle Lovett wrote “Don’t Touch My Hat,” in which he sings about a preference for his Stetson over his girl because it doesn’t complain or cry. I have the feeling that although Wesley Anderegg says he likes hanging out and talking to women, he might share Lovett’s feelings about his chapeau. 

When I interviewed Anderegg in November 2024, he was wearing his wide-brimmed white Stetson, at the insistence of his wife, Donna. He is seen in images, more often than not, wearing the hat and it is so much part of his persona that he says he couldn’t rob a local bank because everyone knows who is under that white crown. Consistent with the hat is the fact that Anderegg’s ceramics are dedicated to themes focusing on the American West with its cacti, ochre tones, jackrabbits, and cans of beer. And while such motifs could be deemed trite or clichéd, Anderegg is dead serious about his making and his oeuvre. 

Horse Opera 

For concentrated exposure to the Anderegg style and personality, one need look no further than “Circo de las Estrella Borrachas (Circus of the Drunken Star),” an exhibition that took place at Hecho Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2023. The catalog of images contains a fantastical biography written by the artist that begins, “MAY 15, 1963. Phoenix, Arizona. 114 degrees.”² This much is true. As for his joining the Circo in Gallup, New Mexico, and the adventures that ensue, Anderegg imagines a story that nimbly connects objects. 

Hitch Hiker, with his oversized green head, piercing green eyes, and tiny high-top sneakers, stands beside the highway with a thumb out. He is balanced on his wooden pedestal by a single saguaro cactus on the other side of the asphalt. The bleakness of the scene is reminiscent of the Arizona desert, with the naïveté of the young man’s expectations of a ride being funny and disturbing at the same time. The next image—linked to its predecessor in the fantasy—has the hitchhiker riding a donkey through the same landscape. He has acquired a hat and beverage that show his proper adjustment to the environment. 

These objects, renditions of which were made as separate entities in the past, were recreated as an ensemble for the exhibit. The similarity in the style of the characters, the likeness of each mise-en-scène, and the consistent tawny color palette permit a cohesive grouping and fable. Escape Artist, whose inescapable binding is intended as social commentary, finds a home in the Circo where magic reigns and release is inevitable. Anderegg walks a fine line between gravity in his clay personifications and the humor that his “creepy, angst-ridden people” (his description) evoke. In the tale of the Circo, the escape artist is “the slipperiest person”³ the author ever met, who used his escape skills to disappear to take art classes where he drew naked ladies. Very few ceramic objects have such an elaborate back story. 

Circo de las Estrella Borrachas ends with the author having to take a course in goat cheese making, meeting a “nice lady,”⁴ getting married, and starting a goat farm in California. This, too, is true. Couple with Dog is a self-portrait (sort of ) of Wesley (with Stetson) and Donna with their dog. All of Anderegg’s dogs look like the Nubian goats his daughter bred when she was involved with 4-H, but he can be forgiven for artistic license when it comes to man’s best friend. 

A photo in Judith Schwartz’s “Confrontational Ceramics” (2008) shows a piece from a previous circus-themed series by Anderegg. The Victim (2004) depicts a caged, crawling naked man with knives in his back. The blatant angst of this figure is a startling contrast to the playfulness of his successors twenty years later. The artist may now be less tortured although he’s no less concerned with the social, political, and environmental issues that pervade the planet. 

West Side Story 

Anderegg lived a wild childhood in Phoenix, Arizona, where his adventures with pals on Sting-Ray bikes earned him a reputation as a hell-raiser. His family background was bereft of art and his mother chose his university major, geography. Having completed all the compulsory courses, Anderegg selected ceramics as an elective to finish off his degree (Arizona State University, 1982), and, like many of his peers, was smitten by the material and its potential. He immediately saw the medium as a way to earn money and found a two-bedroom house with an empty one-car garage where he set up a studio. He says, “I was mostly making decorative pots, raku fired. In the early-to-mid 1980s, I made a coppery, very southwestern-looking pot that I sold a lot of.” 

Almost from the beginning, Anderegg showed his work at the Mind’s Eye Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona. An image from this time shows a large pot whose tones and surface iterate the sandstorms and brush fires in the region. The popularity of these vessels enabled him to save money because he was living cheaply and had no debt. At the same time, he was aware that his training to be a professional potter was limited: “When I left school, I realized that I didn’t know all that I needed to know. So I took workshops in the summer at Anderson Ranch [in Colorado] to help broaden myself because I didn’t have a degree in ceramics.” Coincidentally, that’s where he met Donna. Doug Casebeer was in charge of ceramics at the Ranch and he asked Donna to be a summer assistant. When Donna told Casebeer, “I’m with Wes now,” Casebeer agreed that both could assist. Subsequent to that first summer, they were asked to stay on as residents (1991–1992). 

The Andereggs met Dave Shaner, director of the Archie Bray Foundation from 1963–1970, at the Ranch. Shaner recommended them to the Foundation and they were artists in residence in 1992. When asked if he and Donna collaborate on anything, Anderegg thought for a minute, then said, “Dinner.” Their ceramic practices are separate but close proximity in the studio permits him to rant about the world’s problems while she soothes and comments with a long-suffering, “Yes, dear.” 

After seven years of orthodox pots, Anderegg became disenchanted. As a segue from functional to nonfunctional ceramics, he made figurative cups, saucers, and teapots. One of the latter, Industrial Waste Teapot (1999), is in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. It shows figures wearing gas masks sitting on a rusty oil drum; the juxtaposition of hypothetical toxic sludge with the lapsang souchong tea contained within the pot causes a disquieting pause. Global Warming (2007) further addresses the environment, with, in keeping with Judith Swartz’s theme, in-your-face confrontation, combining figure and text. 

The OK Corral 

The overt political messages in the early work are now more subtle. Anderegg says: “I don’t come at the work from a political point of view. I come at it from a human being point of view and it just happens to be political. I start with something that pisses me off.” His sense of humor comes to the fore in quirky characters who seem more adjusted to being part of society’s passing parade. Desert Survival, at face value, is about being prepared for a trek through user-unfriendly territory. Donkeys amble along, toting six-packs of Coors, and their wrangler leads with a beer can that seems to be driving the expedition. On the other hand, one can’t help but think of the presence of migrants in the southwestern US desert who don’t have the luxury of survival rations and for whom the journey is not funny at all. Similarly, Gunslinger, pays homage to the movie cowboys that are synonymous with America. A closer look at this caricature reveals his blue face and hands—anger about something or nothing—open mouth spewing hate, and boots with skeletal buffalo motifs that are reminders of species extinction. These dichotomies are intentional, the making of which serves as Anderegg’s coping mechanism and the audience’s wake-up call (if it wants to be woken). 

As stated earlier, despite the laughs, Anderegg’s intentions are serious. He considers himself a craftsman, rather than a sculptor, because of his traditional handbuilt, hand-painted clay, and the individually fashioned wooden pedestals and metal armatures that go into each piece: “I try to do this the best I possibly can. I use humor so I don’t come off so heavy-handed. And it’s lighter and easier to take. That’s part of my personality—when stuff hits the fan, I usually make a stupid joke.” 

One might assume that the similarity in objects could permit a production line of sorts, namely batch production of pedestals and rods. But construction of each piece proceeds step-by-step: forming the clay; bisque firing; coloring with personally developed glazes; firing; fitting and soldering a metal armature; and crafting a pine pedestal that is sanded, painted, and finished. As a scenario is being made, another idea might come to mind which is quickly sketched for later access and realization. Anderegg is in the studio six hours a day, seven days a week, and has made his living as a ceramic artist for 42 years. 

In earlier decades he also devoted part of his schedule to farming. The Anderegg property is partially a vineyard where grapes are grown, harvested and processed for personal use. Whereas formerly Anderegg would devote weeks during the season to thin vines and bottle wine, he has hired help and is withdrawing from the fields, partially because of age and, mostly, to concentrate on ceramics. 

When his daughter Izzy was in 4-H, the farm hosted her peers for clay days, exposing the youngsters to art making. Anderegg’s head spinners, for example Nice Socks, arose out of those former 4-H classes. One lesson involved making totems in which beads were stacked on a dowel to make candlesticks. As Anderegg watched the activity it occurred to him that a torso and head could be stacked on a central rod. In keeping with the definition of head spinning—to make dizzy or confused—he adopted the concept, creating figures with a different persona on back and front and heads that rotate. They remind me of vintage paper dolls with interchangeable clothes or kids’ segmented picture books whereby a face, body, and feet can be mixed into unorthodox combinations. Anderegg’s versions in clay are considerably heavier—ranging from three to five feet in height—weirder, and naughtier than their ephemeral cousins. 

Bonanza 

As Anderegg winds down the agricultural part of his life, the ceramics part is full steam ahead. He reflects: “The last few years I’ve been so busy with commitments and shows that I haven’t had time to think up new work. You need time to think stuff up.” As a result, everything that’s made goes straight out the door to galleries in New York or Santa Fe or Dallas. “Sometimes it doesn’t sit around here for a day. It comes out of the kiln, it cools off, I pack it up, it goes. I don’t like doing that because I want the stuff to stick around for a while because I like looking at it. I like having the time to look at one of my pieces and consider, what if I did this or that. Because once it leaves, it’s hard to think about that piece.” The hope is that fewer non-studio obligations will permit the creepy little people of Anderegg’s portfolio to remain in the building a little longer. 

The US has pondered the best route to democracy since its inception, and the 2025 inauguration of its 47th President elicits ending this profile with politics. The ideological outlooks of the American citizenry are epitomized in Politically Correct, Wesley Anderegg’s visualization of the opposites. The male representatives look pretty much the same, although the Democrat wears a necktie and the Republican, a bow tie. Their hands hold their privates after peeing into respective buckets. The buckaroo pissing contest, in which there is no winner, is an instance of a craftsperson taking the opportunity to critique the bizarre and ridiculous. In Anderegg’s case, his tongue-in-cheek observations of the confounding rodeo emerge from under a large white Stetson. 

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). 

1 “Man of Many Hats: The Story of John B. Stetson,” https://blog.stetson.com/the-story-of-john-b-stetson. 
2 Wesley Anderegg, Circo de las Estrella Borrachas (Santa Fe, NM: Hecho Gallery, 2023), p. 6. 
3 Anderegg, p. 40. 
4 Anderegg, p. 44.