Whether her medium is porcelain, paper or paint, air, light and water are regular themes Pat Smith describes as “weaving and interplaying in and out” of her work.

A resident of Old Lyme and Paris, Smith is exhibiting recent works, from functional bowls to abstract wall sculptures, at Old Lyme’s Cooley Gallery.

Smith was born and educated in England. From 1965 to 1968, she studied ceramics in France at the workshops of Francine del Pierre and Jean Lugassy, then continued her studies in the United States at the Hartford Art School.

She has exhibited in Connecticut, Boston, New York, Paris and Taos, N.M. She also has taught at Parsons School of Design and numerous workshops in Paris and New York.

Today Smith concentrates solely on her own work in porcelain, paper, linen, stone and other materials.

She recently discussed her art and her passion for porcelain. 

Q. When did you move to Old Lyme and why? And how do you divide your year between Paris and Old Lyme?

A. We lived in Paris for about 15 years, moved to New York City for about 15 years, and during that time we had a family home in Fenwick (Old Saybrook) that had been in my husband’s family. We used to come all the time and lived there year round when my husband retired. So about nine years ago, we sold our house in Fenwick and moved to Old Lyme. We bought the house of Elizabeth Chandler, who founded the Lyme Art Academy. I have a studio on the property. We spend three to four months a year in Paris and I also work in a ceramic studio there. 

Q. Have you always worked in porcelain?

A. It was my original training and then over the years, when I was living in New York City, I went to some painting classes at The Cooper Union and studied watercolor and started to use paper, and started to see the relationship between the thick, heavy 300-pound hot press watercolor paper, which is very smooth, and porcelain. I had been using porcelain in more of an abstract, sculptural way in that I did a lot of pierced work, rolled it out very flat, sometimes stacked. I started doing a lot of paper work, using the same technique — piercing it, a lot of white-on-white work. I started adding color into my work, using the watercolor. But even so, my palette is very serene, muted and delicate. I also use other materials: slate, copper and rusted iron with the porcelain. 

Q. How has your work evolved? Have you always done abstract art?

A. In the very beginning, I learned more the traditional ways to build with clay, and in Europe, there’s a different aesthetic. They worshipped the ancient Chinese, Japanese, Korean (styles) — particularly the wonderful glazes. When I moved to the States, I began to simplify and simplify and became more interested in sculpture. I have a beautiful matte white glaze. Something that interests me is to have my white glaze look like marble, and I have a beautiful black glaze and sometimes I mix them together and paint markings with oxides onto the raw clay or on the glaze. 

Q. The grouping of recent work at the Cooley Gallery is in response to many requests over the years for truly functional art. Did you just start making functional pieces?

A. I’ve always made big bowls, and I’ve done platters and plates, but mostly my work is very delicate, shell-like. Living in New York City, I did whole series of big bowls you could use for spaghetti, and my husband and friends in Paris asked why I didn’t make those anymore. Of course, my aesthetic in my work pervades — it isn’t all completely functional. 

Q. Do you think ceramic art is one area of visual arts that people don’t know much about?

A. I think there are certain people in the world that love craft as it’s called in America, so they orient either to textiles and weaving and ceramics — they have sort of an innate love of that. In general, even educated people say to me, “You’re an artist? So what kind of painting do you do?” People just don’t think of it as an art form, but particularly in this Western culture. Although certain cultures in Europe have had a very rich tradition of ceramic art — in countries with porcelain deposits naturally in the earth like France, England, Germany, Denmark. So there’s more of an appreciation of ceramics as art in those countries. But less so than in the Orient, where it was a courtly art form, made for the emperors and things like that. They elevated (ceramics) to a very fine art form, particularly with their glazes. 

Q. Tell us a little about your unique process.

A. I use a rolling pin and roll out very thin slabs of clay, construct forms, laying the clay in a plaster mold or on top of a plaster mold. Or pouring wet clay into a mold. Oftentimes I pierce or tear it, press the wet clay sometimes into ridged, wavelike patterns. I make a prototype model, fire it … and then I glaze my work or decorate it with oxide. I make all my own glazes. I don’t buy them. 

Q. Do you find different inspirations in the landscape of Old Lyme versus the city of Paris?

A. There can be. I lived so long on the seashore here and stones, reeds, plants, twigs, thorns, sea urchins, shells with holes eaten away in them, the ribbed sand when the sea comes in and out, the sky, trees, clouds, stars, night colors — all of that (inspires me). I think in Paris, the architecture is so wonderful, and a lot of formal gardens are very inspiring to me — I am a gardener. One discipline spills into another, inevitably. 

Q. What do you like most about working in these materials and where do you get the most pleasure?

A. I have all these things I’ve had for years and years and, sometimes when I’m creating, I put things together like a collage, and for me that’s really the most fun. Things happen that you can’t plan, you don’t have an intention, and all of a sudden you’re creating something that seems to be coherent because it’s made of things you’ve constructed yourself or ideas you have. My best moment is when I’m finding some sort of juxtaposition. You can riff one thing off another. It never ends. I don’t only work with porcelain now, I’m working in other media. What’s important is the porcelain is my core. Sometimes if I get frustrated or fed up with it and don’t do it for one or two years, I always come back to it.

SEE THE WORK

Pat Smith’s recent work is on view through Jan. 9, during the “All Paintings Great & Small exhibit and sale at The Cooley Gallery, 25 Lyme St., Old Lyme. Hours and more information at www.cooleygallery.com or call (860) 434-8807.