Find a way to make beauty necessary; find a way to make necessity beautiful.

~ from Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels

I am drawn to design and build pieces that people use in their daily lives. I have created hand built pottery and collage for nearly thirty years. I work with low-fire clay, applying color with underglaze. Other techniques include wax-resist, printing/embossing, and sgraffiato (carving into unfired clay after color is applied). I construct my shapes by pressing slabs of clay, rolled by hand, into forms I have built or found.

I continue to be curious about what remains after carving into painted clay and the effect of the white space after almost covering an area with color. My work is informed by various factors, some of which are my mathematics background, a meditation and yoga practice, what I read, and the patterns and geometry of daily life.

Rug design is a more recent endeavor. When I received the large jute bag containing my first shipment of rugs, I immediately lay down on them. Every step in their creation is done by hand. They are hand-knotted and made of handspun, hand-dyed wool, which is woven by Tibetan Buddhists in Nepal. These weavers are certified with Rugmark, a global nonprofit organization working to end illegal child labor and offer educational opportunities for children in India, Nepal and Pakistan (see www.Rugmark.org). 

Each rug is 'sculpted', hand-trimmed between every two colors/shapes. Because each is dyed and woven by hand, there are subtle differences between any two rugs of the same design. I truly value the aspect of the work -- for the element of surprise and reminder of the labor-intensive handwork that completes this collaboration. Rugs are available in any size. 

Liz Gamberg
Seattle, 2007
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