Page 78 - South Mississippi Living - October, 2018

ARTIST PROFILE POTTER STILL FASCINATED
BY CREATING IN CLAY
STORY BY SUSAN RUDDIMAN
PHOTOS COURTESY OF HELENE FIELDER
The 40th anniversary of the Peter Anderson Arts & Crafts Festival marks the first
time ceramic artist Helene Fielder is
participating in the festival. A friend, traditional broom maker George Jones Jr. of Florence, Alabama, talked her into joining the festival.
“He’s been doing the show
for the longest time. Since I set up by myself, he said he would help me,” Fielder said. “I know it’s a large show, so that’s a little intimidating.”
Fielder lives in Marietta, Mississippi, a small town between Booneville and Tupelo, where she and her late husband moved about 20 years ago. Though she likes to do gallery and museum shows and a few nearby festivals, that doesn’t mean Fielder is sheltered. Her parents were Yugoslavian and she was born in France. The family lived all over during her childhood, moving back to Yugoslavia, and then around the United States. She served in the military, and at
one point, taught ceramics in Germany. She studied fine art Phoenix, Arizona, and worked
an illustrator for 17 years.
“I’ve been happy anywhere I live, and people have asked me why live in Mississippi,” she said. “Well, it’s a hidden jewel.”
Though Fielder only took one clay class in college, she still finds herself fascinated with
clay almost 40 years later. Each morning, she carries a cup of coffee to her studio near her house, and gets to work. Fielder makes clay sculptures. She writes, “Working with sculptural abstracts and small pendants of various shapes brings back memories
of being a young student in art class. All these shapes before my eyes...”
Though abstract sculptures are her passion, they don’t put food on the table, so Fielder makes a series of functional pottery that are popular. On the second floor of her studio, she works in metal and stone carving. She said she can spend up to 80 hours carving one piece of jade.
Fielder is no stranger to the Coast. Her pottery sold for
more
than a
decade in the gift shop at the Walter Anderson Museum of Art. Whenever she visited Ocean Springs, she made a point of spending time sketching in the community center that is graced by the Walter Anderson mural.
“As an artist, I hope that every day I continue learning my craft and hopefully never find myself sitting still on small shards of a successful piece
that can trap one into repetition,” she
wrote.
78 SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living • October 2018
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