Lucchesi was a long time Maine resident active in the art community. She exhibited widely and was active teaching pottery to all age levels. With over 12 years teaching at Unity College, she is strongly linked with college level students and the area boasts many former students still pursuing their art. She recently passed away and has directed that her artwork be donated to public institutions that will exhibit it. To assist in implementing this optional dispersal, I am seeking Maine non-profits that will display and accept a donation of artwork.
Primitive fired pottery best describes the bulk of her recent work. Her organic hand built forms are fired in a pit with sawdust that results in a beautiful, soft abstract coloration from tans, pinks to black.
Artist Statement-Gretchen Lucchesi
When I was an undergraduate, I worked in stone, steel and bronze. I enjoyed the processes of carving, welding and lost-wax bronze casting, but when I discovered clay I felt a directness and immediacy with the material I had not experienced before. I fell in love with the “feel” of it. The sensual quality of clay, the almost life-like response to touch has kept me totally enthralled for over 30 years not. The interplay of form and surface, the ability to approach it both intellectually and intuitively, and the ultimate transformative results of the firing process are what keep me going. The reason I do the work in the first place is difficult to articulate. It is not making more objects. It is about how the process of working with the material brings me to a spiritual place of strength, purpose and peace, and hopefully the pieces communicate those feelings.
Artist Statement-Gretchen Lucchesi
When I was an undergraduate, I worked in stone, steel and bronze. I enjoyed the processes of carving, welding and lost-wax bronze casting, but when I discovered clay I felt a directness and immediacy with the material I had not experienced before. I fell in love with the “feel” of it. The sensual quality of clay, the almost life-like response to touch has kept me totally enthralled for over 30 years not. The interplay of form and surface, the ability to approach it both intellectually and intuitively, and the ultimate transformative results of the firing process are what keep me going. The reason I do the work in the first place is difficult to articulate. It is not making more objects. It is about how the process of working with the material brings me to a spiritual place of strength, purpose and peace, and hopefully the pieces communicate those feelings.
My work is about space; interior and exterior, literal and figurative, architectural and psychological. It is also about process. Wet clay is hand formed-sometimes around metal armatures, sometimes draped over sand bags or more clay or plaster forms. Various clay slips, sands and metals, sometimes mica are burnished into the partially dried surfaces. The pieces are pit fired (or smoked) outdoors in wood shavings for anywhere from 6 hours to 3 days depending on their size and the weather. Over time, my work is evolving from more abstract architectural forms to more personal and figurative shapes.
Gretchen Lucchesi is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College, where she studied sculpture with Leonard DeLonga, and has an MFA from the University of Massachusetts in ceramic sculpture. She was an artist in Residence for the Maine Touring Artists Program and on the LA Arts Roster (LA Arts, Lewiston, Maine); she has been a fellow of the Vermont Studio School and Colony, Vice-President of Maine Women in the Arts, and a member of the % for Art Selection Committee of Kennebec Valley Technical College. She has served as a Visiting Artist in numerous schools around Maine and taught sculpture and pottery at Unity College in Unity, Maine.
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