Risa's Biography

RISA'S BIOGRAPHY:
Risa Hirsch Ehrlich, a NYC artist, was born and raised in the Bronx; attended the High School of Music & Art (now LaGuardia); taught middle school math for a very long time; raised her children; and began exhibiting her ceramic pieces in 1998.  Risa has had one solo and four two-artist shows in addition to many group events; her work has been shown as far away as California and Japan.  So far, clay is Risa's single medium and she works in its many forms:  porcelain, earthenware, stoneware, painted, glazed and unglazed, raku, electric, gas-fired and wood-fired, too.

Risa is intrigued by the thought that the surface is the content.

ARTIST STATEMENT:
“Ceramics is a fragile medium.  I like its accidents.  I invite them.  I invite randomness and even breakage — then use these elements to structure the drama.  The work I love best plays with themes of secretiveness and slyness.  I like little caves, dark holes, false leads, raggedy edges, unfinished corners, visible tearings and visible mendings, unexpected and unpredictable effects.  I like clay behaving like clay but sometimes like cloth.  I like clay beginning frail and ending powerful.  I like challenging clay to be beautiful despite my efforts to disdain beauty.  The dialectic is to turn destruction upon itself and thence into art.”