by steven friedman
correspondent
At 83, Jan Roseman is experiencing a renaissance, of sorts, enjoying life as a ceramic artist.
She will be among 70 artists — and no doubt one of the oldest — to showcase her work at the To Life street fair.
“I feel so fortunate to have rediscovered my fascination with pottery, begun so early in my life,” said Roseman, who grew up in Cincinnati, the granddaughter of one of the most pious Jews in town, she said. “It only took half a lifetime to realize that I was a potter at heart and to begin to ‘play in the mud.’”
Her lifelong fascination with ceramics and pottery began in the third grade after a visit to a local arts center. “I was fascinated by the wheel,” she said. “So it was always something I wanted to do. When I was 50, I had an opportunity to do it.”
Roseman went back to college and studied ceramics, married and even had a studio in her basement. Her husband of 43 years died in 1989. Subsequently, Roseman, who has three grown children, moved in with one of her daughters (who’d been recently divorced) and became a nanny to four grandchildren.
Roseman moved to Sun City in Lincoln, just outside Sacramento, in 1997. She resumed her passion for ceramics three years later.
“The first thing I sold was an ashtray,” said Roseman, who is one of the oldest artists among 40 in her ceramics group. “I used to make mugs and mugs with faces. I also made hanging pots and casserole dishes.”
Her specialty now includes signature pots, and “hand building” with the wheel.
“You develop the piece with your hands rather than on the wheel,” she explained. “You work with slabs. You decorate and form the clay into a bowl. Then I throw the pedestal — what the bowl sits on — on the wheel. I really enjoy that process.
“I achieved some special effects by stamping, overlapping and pinching the clay,” she elaborated.
She also added another feature to the signature bowls. “In a moment of inspiration, I began experimenting with stamping and embossing techniques I learned making butter containers on slumped bowls and platters.
“The right application of handmade lace to fluted slabs slumped over my favorite forms has resulted in a new direction of signature pieces. Underglazes, stains, glazes, and luck with the kiln gods produce some happy results.”
Although Roseman said she doesn’t have the same strength or stamina that she did when she was younger, and she now plops into her chair for instant naps, her schedule as an artist is still rigorous. She spends several hours a day nearly every day of the week in the studio.
All that work has begun to pay off. Roseman has participated in arts festivals, and people are purchasing her crafts.
“It’s so flattering when someone looks at your art and wants to buy it,” said the grandmother of six.
Under the guidance of daughter Carol Roseman, who started the creative arts program at the Jewish Home for the Aged in San Francisco, and Carol’s partner, Roseman now has a price list for her ceramics, which range from $20 to $90.
Roseman said she is inspired by what she’s seen in books and by other artists. Her biggest inspiration comes from Maria Martinez, a Native American potter from San Ildefonso Pueblo, N.M., who worked into her late 90s.
“Martinez did the most exquisite black pottery,” Roseman said. “For a period of time, I tried to emulate her, but I wasn’t as successful.”
But a visit to Roseman’s Web site (www.potsbyjan.com), reveals her remarkable talents as an artist at any age.
“My future’s in the past,” she said. “Ceramic art is just a means of getting me out to express myself. I really enjoy the finished product, making something useful and attractive. I feel like I’m adding to the beauty of the world.”
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California