PedroRamirezArt.com

"Are you a Humanist?"
	Welcome to my site PedroRamirezArt! My own slice of internet with photos and info about my art. Although I am interested in a variety of mediums, I have always been particularly drawn to ceramics. First introduced to it in 1999 by Wendy Farnham and encouraged to continue by other artists, Im also deeply greatful to have studied under the instruction of some very prominent and affluent instructors in the ceramic field including Adam Welch, Linda Casbon, and most recently Patrick Purcell; they have all been great mentors, and a big inspiration. I have always loved sculpture and ceramics and working with the earth through clay bodies, my first piece was in 1999, it was a green sauropod dinosaur that barely fit into my high school's kiln. I have since shrank the figures I make and begun to take on the potters wheel. While fiddling around with making my polymer clay figures I honed my skills for small detail and incorporated this into my ceramics, the result was a style I call encrusting. Encrusting works just like in nature when something like a bucket or any clean surface is left in the water in the ocean or estuary and the barnacles, algae, mussels, and small crustaceons that begin to form within days take over the surface and eventually completely encrust the object. I am from Tidewater, Virginia so this process was something I saw very much in my childhood spending time at the piers in Nofrolk Virginia. I do this with little animals and objects which represent nature "growing" on my wheel thrown pieces, often there are birds and plants also pertaining to my childhood in Suffolk, Virginia. I often compare them with cancer for a negative take on the method. Many think they are 'cute', but as Aristotle said, "The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance." Below are unglazed and glazed earthenware terracotta pieces 2005 Exhibit