About Jane
Listening to the Clay
Emotion Based
I have always thought of myself as an artist. As a child, I drew people constantly and delighted in baking mud pies in the hot Arizona sun. As an adult practicing artist, I still love depicting the human form and working in clay my primary medium of expression.
Emotion Based
Listening to the Clay
Emotion Based
“She is not only a superb technician, but she has an uncanny, wonderful ability to create life in the ceramic arts. …This artist’s work is very emotion-based, and that’s why it’s significant. She doesn’t create ceramic figurines. She creates very live images.” Rudy Turk, Professor Emeritus and former Director of the Arizona State University Art Museum
Listening to the Clay
Listening to the Clay
Listening to the Clay
Whether I’m working with a particular image in mind or more spontaneously, my intention for the end result is to reach the viewer on an emotional level. My process involves “listening” to the clay and being responsive to “happy accidents”. With years of experience, I have learned to follow my inner voice and trust my intuitive responses.
Artist's Bio
Jane Kelsey-Mapel is a Phoenix-based artist renowned for her clay and mixed media figure sculpture. Her art explores deeply personal yet universal themes regarding both human and animal concerns such as family relationships, aging, societal expectations and the intersection of the physical and spiritual. Jane is currently researching and sculpting portraits of primates from the great ape family with a special interest in the matriarchal social order and behavior of Bonobos.
Jane holds a MFA from the University of North Texas and a BA from Arizona State University. She has work held in public and private collections across the US including the Racine, Wisconsin Art Museum, the Arthur S. Goldberg Foundation of Boston, Massachusetts, the Phoenix Airport Museum and the Arizona State University Art Museum’s Ceramics Research Center. Jane received the Crescordia Award for Art in Public Places from Valley Forward Association and has received grants from Arizona Commission on the Arts, Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture and Maricopa County Community College District. Jane is a dedicated art educator having taught at Texas and Arizona universities and colleges for over 35 years. She currently teaches classes at the Mesa Arts Center and the Shemer Art Center and leads short term workshops at art centers and schools.
"Nature, Nurture" (detail)
glazed stoneware, steel, concrete base
16" X 9.5" X 6"