Art Calendar Magazine Cover
Alene Sirott-Cope's pottery was featured on the cover of the March 2007 issue of Art Calendar Magazine.
Art Calendar Magazine is one of the premier business magazines for visual artists, listing 400 juried exhibitions, competitions, gallery shows, art festivals, grants, residencies, and other opportunities. Also features articles written by leading artists on marketing, self-promotion, creativity, and art law for new or established artists.
The Crafts Report
Alene Sirott-Cope's pottery is featured in the July 2007 issue of The Crafts Report (Craft Insight: Ceramics).
The Crafts Report, established in 1975, is a monthly business magazine for the crafts professional.
Published: Thursday, January 11, 2007 Nashua Telegraph
Potter finds new way to create
After a severe ski accident in 1996 left Alene Sirott-Cope of Hollis with back and leg disabilities, the idea of returning to pottery after a 25-year absence did not make a lot of sense. Nonetheless, she wanted to reclaim the joy of creating three-dimensional clay pieces she explored during her college years.
Leaving 26 years in the graphic design business behind and despite the challenges of manipulating heavy clay, Sirott-Cope renewed her passion and began working again with clay in 2000. She took refresher classes at the Sharon Art Center and revisited her true passion, Raku pottery, with the help of some local potters.
Raku is an ancient Japanese method of glaze firing that lends itself to creating unique hand-crafted pottery. Each piece is removed from the gas kiln at 1850 degrees Fahrenheit and promptly placed in a bed of combustible material to smolder in a sealed environment devoid of air. This process is largely uncontrolled and results in metallic glaze finishes highlighted by a wide variety of colorful hues.
When a fellow potter moved with her raku kiln to Pennsylvania, it appeared Sirott-Cope’s passion for Raku might go unfulfilled. Not many potters in the immediate area were creating raku and the required outdoor, gas-fired kiln was a rarity.
So Sirott-Cope resolved to build her own. After a friend donated his old, used electric kiln, she set out to convert it into a Raku kiln. Her husband, who volunteered to perform the simple mechanical conversion, realized how much she loved Raku pottery. So he developed a clever approach for a handicap-friendly Raku patio. This unique setup was engineered from scratch. Every station of the stone patio has been customized to provide a user-friendly “lower disc-challenged potter’s” dream. The kiln is raised on bricks so the red-hot clayware can be removed without stooping or bending. The kiln, turned from its original vertical to a horizontal position, is reinforced with a steel frame so it will not distort with time and use. The kiln lid, is controlled with a pulley system so it can be easily opened and closed from a safe distance with little effort.
There are two raised “smoke pits” used for the reduction process that were prepared from sand and dirt built into side of the patio. Four trash cans hold reduction material and are used for the processing of larger pieces.
Sirott-Cope’s passion for Raku includes pottery prepared using both wheel-thrown and hand-built stoneware or porcelain. She enjoys experimenting with unique fabrication and firing techniques.
Her work is available at Massachusetts fine art galleries, including Handworks Gallery of American Crafts, The Covered Bridge Gallery, NOA Gallery, Generous Heart and The Mindful Body. She is a member of The Dunstable Artisans, The Hollis Art Society and The American Crafts Council.
Look for Alene Sirott-Cope to be featured in an upcoming episode of HGTV's That's Clever! That's Clever! is a daily, half-hour series that highlights the contemporary crafting scene from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon. In each episode, the show travels around the country and visits three different crafters in their own homes who take viewers through a special craft project. Alene was recently filmed making a polymer clay birdbath and a polymer clay birds nest.
As featured in The Nashua Telegraph:
HGTV films local artists for creative new program
By KAITLYN HENNIGAN, Telegraph Staff
Published: Tuesday, Jul. 10, 2007
HGTV viewers across the nation will soon be able to share in the clever and creative projects of 13 local artists in the HGTV afternoon craft show that highlights the contemporary crafting scene across the U.S.
“That’s Clever” will feature the area artists among 65 episodes of the show’s upcoming season.
Three local residents were chosen to display their artwork and demonstrate a project during HGTV tapings in their own homes.
Easy Raku, for you
The first time, it didn’t work at all. The second time, she dropped the birdbath on the floor while taking it out of the oven.The third time, the finished product was perfect and ready for a TV debut.
Alene Sirott-Cope, a Hollis resident, is a potter and graphic artist whose “patchpot” pottery birdbath and bird nest projects caught the eye of HGTV producers.
“I had never worked with plastic clay before, and they asked me if I could make these projects with it,” Sirott-Cope said.
It took some experimenting, but Sirott-Cope created a quick and easy pottery project that closely mimics the more technical pottery making process called Raku. A true piece of Raku pottery requires two kilns and special glazes. Sirott-Cope uses a “patchpot” method to create her birdbaths; using items such as rope or lace, she texturizes small pieces of clay and then presses them together to create a bowl shape. Once the clay is molded, it is placed in an electric kiln for around seven hours.
Next, Sirott-Cope applies glaze to the piece, which will create the colorful copper-like sheen that is characteristic of Raku pottery. The glazed piece is then put into a gas kiln, removed once it is red hot and placed in a dirt ditch surrounded by a flammable material, such as newspaper. Sirott-Cope then covers the ditch with a garbage lid and lets the pottery cook for about 30 minutes. When the finished and cooled pottery emerges from the ground, it is a colorful and shiny piece of art. The use of different glazes in different patterns results in unpredictable coloring, thus no piece of Raku pottery is exactly the same. Where glaze is not applied, the cooked pottery will turn black.
Producers liked Sirott-Cope’s artwork, but the Raku process was too long for the TV show, so the Hollis resident was asked to try her birdbath using less expensive polymer clay called Sculpey. The plastic clay can be cooked in a common household oven for 15 minutes, and Sirott-Cope discovered paints that gave the pottery a Raku-like sheen.
“I wasn’t sure about the oven time, if it would hold water, or how the paint would work,” she said. The project did work, and HGTV also asked Sirott-Cope to create another project for the end of the show.
“There are three segments, one for each artist, and then a short project at the end of the show. They asked me to make a pottery bird nest for the end,” she said.
The bird nest is also made with Sculpey clay, and Sirott-Cope uses a garlic press to make string pieces of clay that look like the twigs of a nest. Her first time trying the bird nest was a success. “It’s a great project for kids. It’s fun and easy,” she said.
Sirott-Cope graduated from the Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia, as well as taught graphic design in that city. She currently teaches at the University of MassachusettsLowell, and she began making and selling pottery four years ago. Her pottery is displayed in Chimera Gallery and DesignWares in Nashua, as well as galleries across the country. Her Web site,
http://www.you-clay-me.com/, also provides information on her art. Sirott-Cope was also involved in the Art Walk held early in June.
“I want people to appreciate the project as something they can do themselves,” she said. “I sell my stuff, but I like talking to people about it, too. I realize people can’t spend a lot on this stuff, but if they tell me they like my work, that means a lot to me. That’s very rewarding.”
Artist's pet urn included in international exhibit
The Boston Globe September 14, 2008
Artist Alene Sirott-Cope of Hollis, N.H., was eager to help when a friend asked her four years ago to make an urn for her beloved dog's ashes. As word - and demand - spread, Sirott-Cope created a line of pet urns now displayed on her website, along with bowls, plates, mirrors, wall plaques, vases, and jars.
Of the variety of designs, Sirott-Cope's three-legged pet urn was recently accepted into the Ashes to Art international juried exhibition of funerary urns, vessels, reliquaries, and personal memorial art. The exhibit will run from Sept. 26 through Nov. 30 at The Gallery at Funeria in Graton, Calif.
"It's kind of a morose subject matter that people, including myself, don't want to think too much about," said Sirott-Cope, noting that the raku method of firing the pottery in a pit (to create a unique glaze finish) seems appropriate for this particular artwork. When requested, she will also mix a pet's ashes into the clay before it is fired.
"The ashes disintegrate into the clay which, for me, is spiritual," added Sirott-Cope, who teaches in the graphic design department at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.
In recent years, Sirott-Cope has made pet urns for two of her own dogs. In fact, following the death last January of her Old English sheepdog named Bumble Bear, Sirott-Cope was also inspired to create a line of customizable, raku pottery dog and cat bowls in a variety of colors and whimsical designs. Ten percent of all bowl sales are donated to Emergency Animal Rescue Service, which shelters animals displaced by natural disasters and other crises in the United States and Canada.
"I try to create my work so that it serves a purpose, other than being just a pretty piece to set on the mantel," she said.
For more information, visit you-clay-me.com <http://you-clay-me.com/> .
CINDY CANTRELL
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
