Diana Fayt Workshop
Drawing and Composition - September 23-25, 2011
Diana Fayt will conduct this three day, hands-on workshop devoted to drawing and painting on three dimensional surfaces. Participants will explore composition which is not limited by edges and boundaries, taking into consideration all aspects of the three dimensional surface. The class will address how to transfer your images onto clay surfaces without sophisticated drawing skills.
Diana's daily demonstrations will include using molds to build simple forms, surface applications such as layering of slips and underglazes to create rich fields of color, drawing on and in the clay, the use of oxides, firing strategies, and tips and tricks to obtaining clean crisp lines in clay. The workshop will delve into of elements of design, and how to push the boundaries and see your pieces as limitless surfaces for expressing your visual ideas.
Diana will also discuss and demonstrate other ceramic mediums and processes to create rich and interesting surfaces on your three dimensional forms, using things like cardboard letter stencils and old letterpress typeface.
Class size 18.
Free to the public
September 23-25, 2011
10:00 am - 5:00 pm
Diana Fayt Bio
Diana Fayt was born in Los Angeles, California and has lived in Northern California for most of her life. In 1983 she spent a year living with family in Budapest, Hungary and when returning began her journey towards her career as an artist. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Ceramics and Printmaking from the College of Arts (and Crafts) in 1992. In 1994 she developed a process with ceramics in which she combines all of her loves; drawing, painting, printmaking and clay and refers to it as "as etchings in clay." She has also dabbled in ceramic design and created a line of tabletop ceramic ware in 1999 and most recently has ventured into graphics and illustration. Diana is both a traveler and a lover of home. She gleans inspiration from nature, the mundane and life's stories. Her ceramic pieces are often narrative with marks of time, events and images seen and experienced and then drawn into the surface of her clay platters bowls and vases. By doing this she hopes to leave a permanent mark that expresses her vision of what she experiences in the world around her. Diana currently exhibits her work in galleries and fine boutiques throughout the United States, Japan, Australia and Europe.
Diana Fayt Artist Statement
A white crane dropped an inky haired child on a doorstep in Sunnyvale, California in 1964. Swaddled in clean rags, the child was absorbed into the bonds of a Hungarian family by the name of Fayt. The name Diana was chosen to honor the bright October moonlit night the child had arrived.
Diana's parents are resourceful people from an old world. Diana, an introspective child, watched her mother make clothes from whole cloth and assisted in hand cranking pork sausages in their garage. Her father, an intensely quiet person, was a tool and die man of great precision who later went on to make jewelry.
Diana craved independence from an early age and found a job at fourteen at a hardware store. It was a creaky old-fashioned store run by a fine Italian family. She enjoyed the small drawers filled with sundry nuts and bolts. In winter, she gift wrapped large household appliances with deft skill.
She graduated to spinning pizzas in Santa Cruz at the time of her emancipation. 'Mirror in the Bathroom' played on the radio a lot and people wore assymetrical haircuts, belts around sweaters and multiple rubber bracelets. Diana was not fond of this decade anymore than she was of the swinging 'find yourself' decade that preceded it.
It was then that Diana decided to explore her origins and traveled to Hungary. There she lodged with distant relatives and learned the language of her people with her six year-old cousin as her primary tutor. She explored Communist Hungary with a pack former circus stars who drove an old Cadillac, frequented burlesque shows and liked to "Boogie."
Returning to the States, she made her way cocktailing at a ski resort for cocaine cowboys. She lived on a mountain in isolation. She did not care for the snowstorms that raged inside and outside the lodge.
Fleeing with the arrival of the first thaw, she embarked upon a coastal bicycle trip with a bearded boy from New Hampshire. A year later they tackled the East coast, eventually reaching a fork in the road. Diana landed in Berkeley and became au pair for two toe headed children. It was while she was an au pair that she first set foot in a ceramics studio, visiting with another au pair who was taking a class. She knew immediately that she had found her home. She enrolled in a class but never finished because (in her own words), "I could never find parking." She attempted another class apparently within walking distance and completed the course.
Diana entered the California College of Arts and Crafts. She experimented with printmaking and ceramics and by the end of her four years, had initiated the course toward her present work.
Moving to S.F. in the early nineties, Diana has made her way as a server in restaurants while cultivating her artistic vision. Diana has made her home at Firefly Restaurant for a decade, where she is well regarded for her knowledge of corn pone and corn smut and other esoteric foods.
It is at Firefly where she met businesswoman Maggie Nugent of Synergy Designs, a ceramics wholesale outfit. Diana began designing for Synergy shortly thereafter. Her tenure with Synergy sent her back to Hungary, a factory in Hodmezovasarhely (Beavertown) where the Diana Fayt collection was produced. The work was imported and sold in the U.S.
Diana has continued to produce her own enigmatic work and has had solo shows in the U.S. and Tokyo, has been featured in several Japanese publications and continues to sell her work here and abroad. Diana is a member of the Clay and Glass Association in California. She resides in San Francisco.
