"THE SUPREME COURTESAN"
Connie Kiener, whose education includes the Museum Art School, Portland and the Chouinard Art Institute, Los Angeles, works exclusively in the traditional majolica ceramic technique as practiced in the Umbria region of Italy.
Her work is hand-built with a white earthenware clay which is bisque fired and then glazed. She decorates in the true Italian Majollica technique using colored paints from Italy which are formulated with colorants and frits to make them bond with the glaze and melt at the right temperature. Connie paints on the raw glaze, and the piece is sprayed with a “crystallina”, a clear glaze that matures at a lower temperature to keep the painting from melting, flowing or blurring. The painting is sandwiched between the base and the surface glazes.
Kiener states, “I remember the excitement I felt the first time I observed the work of Bernard Palissy. His plates were like peering into a carefully arranged forest floor and a little bit scary. This connection with the natural world is evident in my work to this day.”
Kiener’s work is included in the collections of the White House, Renwick Gallery, and the Kamm Collection in Los Angeles.