ILLUSTRATION by SERGE BLOCH

Patricia Sannit creates Earth-inspired ceramics

Towering above Norway’s picturesque landscape stands the Jotunheimen mountain range, a formation laden with glaciers, clear blue lakes and rocky terrain that was carved over millions of years as ice slowly crept across the land. It was here, as a college exchange student, that ceramist Patricia Sannit says she had the first of several awe-inspiring moments that have affected her artwork, which consists mostly of sculpture, vessels and tiles. “When you’re on one of those mountains, it’s a life-changing event.” She describes as especially inspirational finding spots where orange lichen grew on granite: “It must be the contrast of colors and textures, fragility and mass. It is amazingly beautiful, and I have always considered that image of visual contrast some sort of touchstone, a vibrating image that I regularly see in my mind’s eye.”

Towers, a clay and wood sculpture measuring 30" x 10" x 10", is formed from reclaimed clay displayed on pine blocks.

Over the years Sannit has had other such experiences, including a visit to the area where Lucy, the skeletal remains of a female hominid, was discovered in Ethiopia, and excavating primitive figurative pieces at an archaeological site in Jordan. Sannit views these moments as examples of history and culture that supersede societal differences and language barriers to help connect people to the Earth. Their influences can be seen in her handcrafted sculpture, where clay is displayed in its natural red, beige and gray tones and accented with simple geometric patterns. “I feel like I’m recapitulating design from culture to culture to draw a line of continuity,” explains this Master of the Southwest.

Sannit believes that, like her, most artists draw inspiration from their life experiences. “You absorb everything you look at. There are so many things in the world that you ‘swallow’ and it comes back out.”
 
The Ohio native says she has always been artistic, and recalls winning an award for a watercolor in the first grade. Drawn to pottery as a girl, she later studied ceramics and Scandinavian studies at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Sannit received her master of fine arts degree from the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland and moved to Phoenix a decade ago. Explaining that she finds inspiration in the geology of the Southwest, the artist notes that such definitive desert shapes as rock formations and sculptural cacti now influence her designs.