Works of art by Burbank artist Patti Steele Hallowes are now on display in Magnolia Park. This isn’t your usual ceramic art, but features some unique and sculptural pieces with some unexpected delights.
The exhibition features some of Hallowes’ award-winning ceramic pieces with a sampling of her work that spans nearly two decades. The exhibition is currently in the Gallery at An Open Invitation on Hollywood Way
Hallowes, a Burbank resident and graduate of John Burroughs High School, began doing ceramics nearly 20 years ago. She started with classes at the Burbank Creative Arts Center, and continued with classes at Valley College and UC Santa Barbara. She’s a past-president of the American Ceramics Society’s Design Chapter, and currently Membership Chairman of the Ventura County Potters’ Guild. She and her longtime partner, Tony Trotta, are well known in Southern California ceramics circles.
Working out of her home studio with its potter’s wheels and kilns, she has incorporated some of her life experiences into her works. Two very striking pieces in the show, gorillas “Veronica and Stanley,” relate to time she spent at the Los Angeles Zoo.
“A dozen years ago I used to volunteer at the Zoo Garden with my friend, the late Bonnie Motensen Ju,” said Hallowes, “The garden grew plants that the animals liked to eat.”
Another of her animal sculptures, a coyote next to a cactus, won both the Best of Show and Peoples’ Choice Awards at the Ventura Potters’ Guild show held in Ojai in 2010. The coyote incorporates a whistle sculpted inside the figure.
“If you blow into the cactus apple on the piece,” said Hallowes, “The coyote howls.”
Likewise, another piece featuring a cat with a bird in its mouth, meows when you blow into the piece. There are several other smaller pieces in the show that are also whistles. Hallowes’ interest in whistles started after she attended a workshop on Catalina Island several years ago, where she learned how to make them. Numerous other workshops that she has attended have also added to the variety of work that is being show in this exhibition.
Also included in the exhibition some of her wheat weavings. Hallowes has been doing the wheat weaving for several years. In 1993, one of her pieces was sent to the White House to go on the Presidential Christmas Tree as an ornament.
An Open Invitation is located at 888 Hollywood Way. The store and gallery are open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, and from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. The gallery is open to the public free of charge. Hallowes’ work will be on display now through January 31.
