Paul Chenoweth

I may have been freezing my rear end off while stomping around the streets of Anchorage over the week of Thanksgiving, but there were a number of people who warmed up my stay and made all that walking well worth it. My last few days in Alaska coincided with the Craft Weekend at the beautiful Anchorage Museum. Among a host of artists and authors at the event was Wendy Gingell, a ceramic artist who is a relative newcomer to Alaska.

It took about two seconds to see Wendy’s smile as I introduced myself to her at the show. Wendy is a gracious hostess and shared great information on her graffito style and glazing technique. Her work is focused on function. Mugs, plates, and bowls are all handmade and include Wendy’s special touch of designs lightly carved through a layer of underglaze. Wendy’s passion for clay-art and craftsmanship shows in her work as well as her conversation…and it is contagious. I suspect that her students get hooked on clay like so many of us who are fortunate to have teachers like Wendy.

The Anchorage Museum shop displays some of Wendy’s work…and, in my opinion, would do well to include more. She shows in several places across the lower 48 and has a web site that is well worth perusing: www.gingellceramics.com. You can follow Wendy on Twitter here: @WendyGingell and find her on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/wendy.gingell.14

I understand that there are days in Anchorage when the temperatures actually gets above 19F…I might have to check into that some day. In the meantime, I’m confident that any visitor to Wendy’s studio or any of her shows will receive a warm welcome and a terrific impression of her work.