Coille McLaughlin Hooven (American, b. 1939). "Birdcage" porcelain & mixed media, 1982. A unique, museum-quality sculpture by Coille McLaughlin Hooven titled "Birdcage" inspired by the artist's "childhood fables, lessons, and memories". "Birdcage" beckons the viewer to peer within the cage and witness a magical world of porcelain figures featuring a large bird swinging above an endearing ensemble of zoomorphs enjoying a tea party while a few others explore their environs within the cage and also peer at the world beyond. The chairs of the seated animals are placed upon miniature circular porcelain carpets, and a beautiful blue-on-white porcelain tiled floor adorns the bottom of the cage. In Hooven's words, "The scale of my work is delicate—private, small, inviting. It doesn't hit you over the head. You have to bend down and look at it—it's about intimacy." The intimacy of Hooven's work is in part due to the intimacy of her delicate medium, and Hooven's training with ceramics master Peter Voulkos led to her undeniable artistry. Hooven skillfully modeled the forms, embellishing them with wonderful features and cobalt blue details that contrast beautifully with the pristine white of the porcelain and elegantly recall the traditions of Chinese and European ceramics. A remarkable piece by Coille McLaughlin Hooven that is at once "tender, playful, and surreal". Size: 9" L x 13.75" W x 15.25" H (22.9 cm x 34.9 cm x 38.7 cm)

About the artist: "Coille McLaughlin Hooven was born into an important pottery heritage. Hooven's great aunt Mary Louise McLaughlin was instrumental to the American art pottery movement as one of the first studio potters in the United States. McLaughlin wrote the first manual on china painting in the US, helped to found the Cincinnati Pottery Club, and was the first American artist to develop an underglaze technique for decorating ceramics at a time when few others in the world had the ability. While Hooven never had the opportunity to converse with her great aunt about ceramics—McLaughlin died in 1939, the same year Hooven was born—she feels deeply connected to her ancestor and carries her legacy of innovation and skill into the twenty-first century.

Hooven enrolled in her first ceramics class, taught by master ceramist David Shaner, at the University of Illinois in 1959. After receiving her BFA, Hooven began working at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, where she expanded the ceramics program from a single class to an entire department and served as Department Chair. In 1969, Hooven traveled to California for the first time and became enamored with the West Coast ceramics scene, which she viewed as more welcoming and less restrictive than its East Coast counterpart. She moved to Berkeley in 1970, and the Bay Area ceramics community fully embraced her as one of their own.

In Berkeley, Hooven began creating the delicate porcelain sculptures she is known for today. Considered one of the first ceramists to address feminist issues in clay, Hooven makes whimsical and imaginative teapots, vessels, busts, and sculptural scenes that explore female identity and the roles of women in modern society. The works appear delicate and 'feminine' due to their small scale and precious nature—enhanced by the use of porcelain, the most fragile of all clays—yet they speak to Hooven's strengths, obtained through her personal experiences as a woman artist, a wife, and a working mother.

Hooven's work incorporates a cast of creatures from nursery rhymes, fables, and fairy tales into scenes with everyday domestic objects. The spout of a teapot morphs into the head of a dog, or a long-necked creature rises from the depths of a shoe, as in The Lonely Knight. Using both playful and surreal elements, Hooven addresses ideas of domesticity and family relationships, particularly the highs and lows of parenting. Her work has a sense of humor and quirkiness, often underlain by darker emotions of separation or loneliness." (Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, New York)

Artist Statement: "Meaning evolves as I work on a piece. It comes from my inner dialogue and the physical act of working with the clay. Similar to a dream, the finished piece has layers of the literal, surreal and personal. It creates a feeling that lingers. My desire is to reflect the pleasures and struggles of being human.

What a fortunate calling it is to be an artist, to participate in the creative flow. As I coax the birth of a new piece, I am so often filled with surprise and wonder at how a lump of clay has become so expressive of exactly what I didn't realize I was trying to convey." (Coille McLaughlin Hooven 2013)

"FALLING IN LOVE - In 1960, at the University of Illinois, I was taking classes in art history, sculpture, painting, weaving, jewelry, and drawing. One day I received a telegram from my father that read, 'Strongly suggest more Latin.' But it was too late. I had discovered the ceramics studio. Clay had captured me: that mound of wet earth, so seemingly malleable but hard to conquer.

My teacher, David Shaner, was young and energetic, fresh from Alfred University and on the cutting edge in the field of ceramics. As the first and only person enrolled in the new ceramics major, I benefited from the tutorial nature of our relationship. Ceramics became my focus for the next 45 years.

During the first years I worked with stoneware. Fired to cone nine in a reduction atmosphere, this lack of oxygen causes the impurities of the clay body to commingle with the glaze which achieved delicious surface color. It was the time of Peter Voulkos and abstract expressionism. One could easily make huge pieces from this strong clay. Stoneware was king for about forty years. On the West Coast in the late sixties, the funk movement of Bob Arneson was born and the ceramic avant garde switched to low fire white clay. Because it was fired at only 1700 degrees, one could use very bright, almost garish color; reds, yellows, fuchsias had lustrous surfaces. I used this too for a few years. Moving to Berkeley 1970 and sharing a studio, I tried a new direction using porcelain clay.

Working with porcelain, one has a tempestuous partner. One must not get it too wet or it will collapse. Get it too thick and it will crack. Temperamental, it is affected by weather and its own degree of malleability or plasticity. Even in a well sealed plastic bag porcelain stiffens up over time. This clay has a willful mind of its own. It took me years to become its partner, to hear its tune. I learned to say, 'What are we ready for today?' Porcelain is known as the most difficult of clay bodies. It shrinks 20% from wet to final glaze which complicates the drying and firing process. But as the saying goes 'No pain, no gain,' for porcelain is the also Queen of all clays. The strength and exceptional plasticity of these small flat molecules can capture gesture and movement exquisitely. I can create attenuating or loop-de-loop handles.

Porcelain is the highest fired of all clays, to 2400 degrees- white hot. It then becomes translucent where thin and exceptionally strong. As I make a piece, I flow with the rhythm of making, focus on controlling the shape as it appears until it feels finished. Whether I am making teapots or fantastical shoes, the feel of the clay is alive and I am part of the process. What a fortunate calling it is, to be an artist, a passionate affair." (Coille Hooven, 2011)

Coille McLaughlin Hooven's porcelain sculptures have been collected by prestigious museums such as the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. According to the MET, "Inspired by Jungian psychology, dream interpretation, and her personal biography, Hooven crafts subversive and psychologically charged ceramics that explore feminist ideologies while also addressing the pleasures and struggles of being human." According to the Smithsonian, "Coille Hooven 'knew from the age of two' that she wanted to become an artist. She graduated from the University of Illinois, Urbana, in 1962, and in 1970 moved to Berkeley, California, where she fell in with a lively group of artists led by ceramics master Peter Voulkos. Voulkos and his circle taught Hooven to think of ceramics as another kind of sculpture. Childhood fables, lessons, and memories inspire Hooven’s dinnerware and sculptures, which are often finished with the blue-and-white glazes of traditional Chinese and European ceramics."

Accompanied by Ferrin Contemporary statement with a proposed sale price of $8500.

Provenance: private Santa Barbara, California, USA collection; acquired by descent from mother who was the original owner and purchased this piece directly from the artist

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Some scuffs to painted wooden dowel and wire of porcelain bird's swing. Small loss to tip of the miniature porcelain bird. Other figures appear to be intact. Hybrid figure with woman's body and zoomorphic head shown hanging from the cage has remains of adhesive under hands and was probably glued in a fixed position at one point. Porcelain table and miniature circular carpets are glued to blue and white porcelain tile floor of the cage. A few figures are loose and may be moved to different locations in the cage. The chair of the seated mouse is glued to a porcelain carpet beneath. The two other seated zoomorphic figures are not. Minor scuffs to the cage. Cage door opens and closes. Handle joined to top of cage enables it to be carried and perhaps suspended. Some stains to the tiles adorning bottom of cage.