Susan Giddings

Pottery

It is so ironic that I studied T’ang Dynasty Ceramics in college and never learned how to make pottery until so many years later.
I find that the art aesthetic never left me — it was so deeply buried by years of piano instruction from a very artistic instructor. He
lived next door to a lovely rose garden filled with Rodin sculptures. In spring and summer we’d always take long walks out there. I don’t know what actually taught me more — the sculptures or the roses.

Now, I also know that mathematics always played such a dominant role. People always say “well, yes, of course — it’s the music in your background” as if that explains everything. Well, I guess it does, sort of. It’s because I think so much about design in what I make. Everything I make is pretty much based on the Golden Rectangle, the principles of Phi. Let me just leave it there…design is so very important — and to me, design is fundamentally applied mathematics. Now I am studying Platonic and Archimedean solids so that I can make them without a second’s thought. I have this idea you see: based on geometric solids, translucent porcelain, light. More simply stated – chandeliers, sconces.   It brings to mind the rose garden of my youth.

Not really a biography, but it does explain so much about me that a more traditional biography wouldn’t even touch.

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