Victoria Rose Martin is a sculpture living in Palm Beach County, Florida. Her 3D and 2D works are hand built using low-fire clay. The surfaces are decorated with stamped words and a variety of finishes, including oxides, under glaze, and glaze. Victoria writes on her web site, “My work is a reflection of life. The pieces are memories of people, places and things I have known. In the small faces I can see members of my family, people I once knew, and even myself. The work tends to be whimsical with a slightly dark under current.” Her pieces are collected both nationally and internationally, and it has appeared in the publications: Art Doll Quarterly, 500 Dolls, Contemporary Ceramics, Contemporary Dolls and Ceramics Monthly.
Q: What are you working on right now?
A: I am creating primarily female figures with animal features. One of my favs is Ms. Foxie (left). I’ve also started making figures on boxes again (right, Besties). I’ve also started small scale paintings based on my sculptures.
Q: Why do you make art?
A: I make art because I need to. I get very cranky when I can’t. Even on vacation you’ll find a small sketchbook and watercolor set in my bag. I have fidgety hands that love to be creative.
Q: What’s your current favorite, can’t-live-without-it junkyard find?
A: An antique bottle rack. I have started hanging my wall pieces on it but I plan on eventually building a figure for it. For the time being, it’s a display rack in the middle of my studio.
Q: What is your least favorite technique that you still use anyway?
A: Slab building with clay. I cut off bits of clay and roll them out with a rolling pin, over, and over and over. And then I build stuff.
Q: What’s your favorite tool or material?
A: My paring knife and a very stiff, groggy clay body. The clay almost sculpts itself.
Q: What’s the best book you’ve read lately?
A: I’ve just re-read A New Earth: Awakening to Your Lifes Purpose, Eckhart Tolle.
Q: What’s the most inspiring trip you’ve ever taken or adventure you’ve ever had?
A: Years ago I had a dream of a huge castle and in this dream archangel Michael kept hovering over my head. I was a little freaked out by the dream because everywhere I ran to inside this castle I would look up and there was this angel floating over me. Years later I was watching a travel show and I saw the castle from my dream. It was Mont St. Michel in France. Needless to say I had to go and see the mont. It was awe-inspiring and was just as it had appeared in my dream, minus the floating angel of course. Oddly enough I knew the layout because of my dream. It was a very surreal experience.
Q: What’s the last thing you cooked?
A: Food: Brown rice. Clay: A lot of cool work.
Q: If you could surround yourself with only one color, what would it be?
A: Bzzzz. Wrong Answer!! I love color, from my purple & turquoise dining room to my golden living room. I certainly don’t do beige. In fact, only yesterday I painted the green walls in my studio coral and I absolutely love it. My husband often jokes that the rooms in our house are getting smaller because of all the layers of paint on the walls.
Q: What’s your favorite place in all the world?
A: Central London so far.
Q: What one thing do you want to do that you haven’t done yet?
A: I’d love to see Machu Pichu.
Q: What’s the best day you’ve ever had?
A: My wedding day. We eloped. We went to lunch after the ceremony and sat by the water and a sailboat with the name Heart of Gold pulled up to the dock. It was a good sign.
Q: What’s today’s Word to Live By?
A: Smile!
Q: What is your guilty pleasure?
A: I love most paranormal or spooky TV shows or movies. They’re really just so horrible, but I absolutely adore them! My favorite series was Most Haunted and I own every season on DVD. (Now that’s a confession.) [You can see Victoria Rose’s paranormal DVD collection in the hutch below.]
Q: What do you listen to when you create?
A: I’d love to say something deep, but I can’t lie: paranormal shows.
Q: If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
A: Teleportation. Wouldn’t that be so cool to blink your eyes and be on the other side of the planet?
Q: With whom would you love to spend one day making art?
A: Vincent Van Gough.
Q: When is your favorite time of day?
A: I love the look of twilight and the long shadows as night settles in.
Q: What is on your workspace right now?
A: Surprise, surprise it’s clay! There are two pieces on my table, one which reminds me of princess and the pea and the second is Ricë Freeman-Zachery & EGE.
Q: What is your earliest memory?
A: I was probably 1 or 2 years of age, in my walker and I tipped over when my wheels got stuck on the vacuum cleaner hose.
Q: What’s your one favorite material thing?
A: My MacBook Pro.
Q: What’s your best piece of advice for artists?
A: Do what you love and success will find you. And always remember the harder you work the luckier you get.
Q: Do you have a talisman/power garment/magical thing you wear?
A: I do have trinkets that inspire me on the wall shelf over my worktable. What I do have is a belief that magical things occur around us all of the time, especially when we’re doing what we love. Making art to me is a form of meditation where one can tap into other realms of being. Now that’s magic.
Click here to visit Victoria Rose Martin’s blog.
Click here to visit Victoria Rose Martin’s website.
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