Bianka Groves shares stories from her life with clay, in February's Meet the Member.

How did you first get interested in clay?

I was first introduced to clay in high school in South Dakota in the 1990s. I was always getting into trouble and skipping school and spent a lot of time in ISS, (in-school suspension). The ceramics teacher would pull me out of ISS and put me to work loading & unloading kilns, scraping kiln shelves, and doing the basic odd jobs of the ceramics classroom upkeep. I loved the hard work and being productive, and I learned so much. She sort of took me under her wing and I took to the potter’s wheel. That was nearly 30 years ago and since then I have been a self-supporting clay artist for over 10 years. I received my BFA in ceramics in 2012 and have taught ceramics at Baltimore Clayworks, Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis, and Santa Fe Clay. I just recently decided to go back to school to get my MFA. 

Describe your studio.

My studio is a small but easy-to-clean, 90 sq ft shed on the side of my backyard. It has a nice clay-splattered window in front of my wheel that looks out into the desert where I can watch birds at the bird feeders and the occasional coyote, deer, and rabbit who happen to pass by. I have a glass door that looks into the backyard where I can watch my dogs play and dig holes. The back wall of my studio is lined from the ground to the ceiling with shelves that my uncle and I built, and they are filled with everything you’d expect to find in a clay studio; books, dry materials, tools, greenware and bisqueware, and a little figurine of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. There are lots of things hanging on the walls from an old 1940s map of New Mexico, found skulls of various animals, a chart of the periodic table of elements (which I hope to memorize one day), and a giant poster of all the different classifications of rocks. In another little makeshift building, I have my kiln. I recently upgraded from a small Paragon from 1978 to a brand-new Skutt 1027; it’s super shiny and still has that brand-new car smell. 

  

Functional ware by Bianka Groves. Photos from the artist.

Describe your “work.”

My work is wheel-thrown, porcelain, black and white, and mostly useable. For the normal functional pots, I use Bernard Leach’s white liner glaze on the insides, and on the outsides, I carve patterns and designs and inlay black slip into the carvings, similar to the art of tattooing. I also make large bowls that are a little too large to be functional and their surfaces are usually unglazed or heavily textured, making them lovely art pots. All of the unglazed surfaces are polished to a silky-smooth finish. 

Mugs by Bianka Groves. Photo from the artist.

When you are not working in your studio, what do you enjoy? 

Any free time I have outside of the studio is spent outdoors with my husband and our dogs. We make our way out to the middle of nowhere on old forest logging roads and hike for hours, play in the dirt, and look for treasures like rocks and old bottles. Sometimes, we find pieces of old rusted vehicles or newer, abandoned stolen vehicles. I’m in grad school and teaching ceramics at UNM now, so my time is much more strictly organized. I only get outside about once a week. 

Do you play music in your studio? If yes, what do you listen to?

I listen to podcasts and audiobooks in the studio. I used to only listen to non-fiction works such as biographies and documentaries but now I listen to pretty much everything. I go through a book about every other day. The stories keep me on task much more than music, so I save music for inside the house or car. The same goes for music alongside podcasts and audiobooks, I listen to all kinds, from punk-rock to indie-Spanish. I love it all. 

What other pottery do you have in your home? 

Inside my home, I think I have a pretty impressive pottery collection. Lots of mugs, which is funny because I don’t drink coffee, I am a loyal tea drinker. I’m a sucker for aesthetics as well as good craft and design. Some of my favorite mugs are made by Sunshine Cobb and other New Mexico potters, Rachel Donner and Patty Bilbro. The plates and bowls we use the most are by Birdie Boone, Justin Rothshank, Didem Mert, and David Swenson. All of our dishes are handmade by many different potters (minus the few pint cups we accidentally left with from a bar). The ceramic art pieces we have around the house are works by Bryan Hopkins, Brett Freund, Shoko Teruyama, Kristen Kieffer, and more New Mexico artists, James Creamer and Betsy Williams. Too many to name really. And never enough. 

Bianka with her dogs. Photo from the artist. 

What caused you to join NMPCA? Describe involvement with NMPCA.

I am new to NMPCA, and it was brought to my attention through Cirrelda Snider-Bryan. I haven’t had much involvement with NMPCA yet, but I hope that will change soon. One of my goals as a grad student at UNM is to expose the art department to the wonderful world of ceramics and the ceramics community that New Mexico has to offer and I am eager to learn all I can about NMPCA to make that happen to benefit all of New Mexico’s clay people.

Bowl with luster by Bianka Groves. Photo from the artist.