Local Artists in Yuma, AZ
Yuma Art Center The Yuma Art Center is located in the heart of Downtown Yuma on Main street. It offers a wide variety of special events and classes for adults, children, and families.
It features: Four Visual Art Galleries Classrooms and Artist Studios Pottery Studio Gift Shop Historic Theatre
The Art Center has 4 different galleries that are always changing with new artwork and Art shows.
The Yuma Fine Arts Association Gift Shop is a Non- Profit Arts Organization. Sales From The Gift Shop Help To Support the Art Center programs. The Art Center helps local artist by selling their work in the gift shop. When you buy a gift from the gift shop, you are supporting a local artist.
Colorado River Pottery Jan Bentley
Colorado River Pottery is located on 2 nd Street near Downtown Yuma.
Jane was always interested in art and she wanted to be an artist when she grew up. She took her first ceramic class when she was twenty since her high school did not have ceramics. At the University of Oregon she received her BA in Fine arts. Her husband was offered a job in Yuma so she moved to Arizona and has been in Yuma ever since.
Arizona Western College taught her how to fire a kiln and mix glazes and she has owned Colorado River Pottery for about 20 years. When I came to visit, her goal for the day was to finish all of the projects she had made yesterday. She trimmed and put handles on a few cups and salsa bowls.
This is a picture of her outdoor kilns. She has 4 electric kilns and 1 gas kiln.
Some of her work is based on local petroglyphs or rock art made by the ancestors of Native Americans. These particular designs are found along the Gila River in eastern Yuma County Arizona.
A large part of Jane s business is creating custom made ceramics sets for baby gifts or other special occasions.
Her favorite thing about clay is that it is endlessly new and it is as old as the earth. People can use the same clay and come up with different artistic solutions. No matter what you have learned about clay, there is always more to learn.
Holly Hendrick Holly Hendrick has been teaching at Cibola High School for 14 years. (She was my Ceramics Teacher!) She has a degree in Studio Art and Counseling from NAU. She has taught, ceramics, art, AP 3-D, AP 2-D, and AP Drawing.
Holly fell in love with clay in High School. During her student teaching she realized that she was just having so much fun with the students in the ceramics room and she knew that the ceramics room was where she belonged.
What she enjoys most about art is that it is extremely soul feeding for her and, therapeutic. It gives her a purpose, it gives her joy, and it is a tool to unlock deep feelings that would be hard to express in the any other language.
Holly has learned different techniques from fellow artists and she also gets good ideas from her students. Over time she has been exposed to so many different images, techniques, and ideas. All that exposure combined with hours of practice has informed her work.
Here is some advice that she gives to current Ceramic students: Don t be afraid to ask for help from others-it will make you a better artist. Don t be afraid to ask for a critique from people you respect-that is how you get better. You need to throw a lot of bad pots to get to the good ones Take what the clay gives you and be flexible when in terms of a predetermined plans in your head Never rush, never rest (this was a sign in her ceramics studio at NAU)
Her favorite thing about clay is that she is able to start out with a block of mud and she is able to turn it into a functional, decorative, or sometimes both (coffee mug with a face). She likes working with other potters/artists and the feeling of community it seems to promote.
She believes that brave people make art. You give someone a blank piece of paper or a glob of mud and you expect them to create something out of nothingthat takes courage!
Judy Phillips Judy Phillips is a glass artist that lives in Yuma, AZ. She is a part of the public art community and now that she is retired, she spends her time promoting arts in Yuma. She has been working with glass for 30 years but she has been fusing glass for 12 years..
Judy has her own studio in her house and she is self taught in glass making. Glass is very tricky and it needs the right programming. It took her awhile to find the right speed and temperature to fire her glass so that it would not break and crack.
Judy studied art in college and she did some stained glass work in the 70s. She got her first glass kiln to make glass beads. While she was using the kiln to fire her glass beads she started fusing glass and she has been hooked ever since.
Using her kilns she combines layers of glass to melt and fuse together to become one. Each day she works out of her home studio to create he glass masterpieces. She fires her glass in an electric kiln that is similar to the ones we use in class. She fires the glass to 1300-1500 degrees. 8 hours to fire and 10 hours to cool.up to 1465. She only gets 4 or so pieces in her kiln vs what we can get because glass kilns do not allow for stacking.
This is her shelf of glass bits that she uses to create different colors on her glass creations similar to the way we use glaze. The chart above tells her if the glass is transparent or opaque just like glazes are.
These are sheets of glass that she cuts down to different sizes and assembles them together before she fuses them in her kilns.
Judy travels around to different states selling her glass creations at various Art Shows and galleries
Tompkins Pottery Located on 2 nd street close to Downtown Yuma (Right across the street from Colorado River Pottery)
Neely and George Tompkins are the owners of Tompkins Pottery. Neely Tompkins didn t do much ceramics in high school but she took three Ceramics class in college and in her grad school and she has been working with clay ever since. She met her husband George at ASU and they now co create. and Neely likes to make the pottery and experiment with techniques, and George likes to glaze and fire the kilns.
Neely Tompkins is very involved in the Yuma Arts community. She has volunteered for over 15 years on nonprofit boards including the Yuma Fine Arts Association.
The Tompkins have been running Tompkins Pottery in Downtown Yuma since 1979. People can come in and place and order for a custom piece of pottery or they can pick out an original piece from their shop
They own two electric kilns, a gas kiln, and a raku kiln just like our classroom does.
This is the studio space in the back of Tompkins Pottery.
When she first started working with clay, Neely preferred throwing on the wheel but after 20years of throwing, her wrists gave out. She still throws on the wheel but she does more handbuilding these days.
Neely says that in order to work with clay, you need to learn its limitations. She is still learning what the clay will do and what it wont do. Sometimes you just have to let the clay do what it wants to do, you cant control the clay. Even after decades of experience with clay, she is still learning every day.
Rebecca Taylor Rebecca Taylor received her Art Education degree from Grand Canyon University in 1981. She has been an art educator for 33 years and has taught every grade level from K- college. In 2011 she retired from Teaching Ceramics at Yuma High School and now she currently teaches Ceramics and AP 3D Design at Central High School, in El Centro California.(She still lives in Yuma)
Rebecca has always had an uncontrollable passion for the Arts. As a young child she was always creating art out of whatever was laying around. Her high school had only drawing and painting classes but she took every one of them. When she got to college she took every ceramics class they offered and spent way too much time in the ceramics studio.
Rebecca s art has evolved from functional to more abstract and nonfunctional sculpture. She finds herself doing art for herself rather than for others, even if it means that most people might find her work too different or unusual. She likes her sculptures to create conversations.
He favorite thing about clay is that it is a master of disguise. It can be manipulated to look like leather, medal, Fabric or whatever impressions you make on the surface. Clay can create small objects or extremely big objects. She enjoys to push her clay to its limits!
Here is some advice from Rebecca to begining Ceramicists Be patient and don t give up! Clay is notorious for cracking, breaking, warping and just falling apart. You have to repair, patch, glue and baby clay. You can t hurry clay. It dries when it wants to. Clay will not always cooperate and as a sculptor you have to exercise extreme patience and self-control. There have been many times I have wanted to smash, throw and destroy clay pieces half way through construction because of cracks. Don t give up! The clay will eventually see things your way!
Larry Yanez Larry Yanez is a native of Yuma, AZ. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Arizona State University in sculpture in 1977.
Larry Larry Yáñez says that his work is a reflection of growing up Mexican and American. He grew up in the Yuma, AZ and he enjoys being part of the Chicano community. In his community and in his artwork, the customs of the United States and Mexico are combined.
One of the goals he tries to achieve with his artwork is to use his story capabilities in visual compositions. He uses his serious humor to share images of his Mexican-American culture.
Most of his material is based on family stories or suburban myths of Arizona. He said that The culture of the Southwest is so different from the rest of the United States. All of us here in Yuma share a culture mixed with multi-cultural elements that help inspire my art work.
His favorite thing about clay is that clay does what it wants to do. You just have to go with it. When you force clay to do something, it won t do it so you have to learn to work with the clay
Larry is a member of the North End Artists Co-op and he displays his work in the window downtown on Main Street.