Aktunowihio Sculpture

Brenda Bates Clark is a self-taught ceramist from the Pacific Southwest, she has worked as an Art Director and award-winning Illustrator. Her past commissioned work includes pieces based on Egyptian themes for the Luxor Casinos main showroom in Las Vegas, Nevada. Her multi-cultural wall sculptures are reminiscent of ancient ritual art. Ms Bates Clarks creations are in numerous private collections across the nation including those of notable celebrities as Martha Stewart.

My earlier years were spent traveling to Thailand (I slept in the shadows of Wat Doi Sutep and walked the catacombs of Wat Udon), Egypt (as a guest of the Fayad family, crawled deep into pyramids where few if any Westerner had been), Italy, England, southern France, Mexico and to native sites in Americas Southwest, learning the ancient ways of bringing clay to life, to preserve the beauties of long ago realities.
I sat with the very elderly on the Hopi reservation in Arizona as a guest of the artist Sonwai, listening to tales of beauty once created. And worked beside young native artists in Chiang Mai and Cairo, watching their hands create intricate yet empowered shapes. Sensing the spirit in such work, that closeness with our world and other worlds.
This line of my Raku fired art is the culmination of years of research involving the symbolism in the rituals that existed in ancient Africa, Asia, Europe and the Pre Americas. They are intimately linked with the origins of the peoples and their migrations into new lands.

After discovering some basic connections between the ancient rituals of these diverse cultures, I was driven to delve deeper into their symbolism. This series is the result of that exploration. My work focuses on and celebrates the ancient wisdom and strengths in this world.

These ceramic images were created to inspire the magical place within each of us... where we can forever continue to sing and dance and celebrate our own free spirit. They share my view of the mythical worlds to which we all are connected.