Clay and Oil is the name, Pottery and oil painting is my game! I’m a solo Artist/business owner with a drive to bring the beauty, textures, and colors of the outdoors into our homes, through visual & functional art.

I create and sell my own work but am far from lonely in my home studio. I have my wonderful husband, busy toddler, and pup filling our days with messes, creativity, dancing and many memories. This energy we create in our home is something that shines through to my work. Each and every piece, its own story, own markings, own personality.

CERAMICS- I use a stoneware mid-fire clay, glazes, oxides, and decals that are fired in an electric kiln. All functional wares made to be food/dishwasher/microwave SAFE.

OIL PAINTINGS- I create my paintings with a non-toxic ground up rock pigment and walnut oil, in handmade frames all inspired by nature.

With the planet in mind, I like to reuse, repurpose, recreate and incorporate salvageable items into my work. Bringing new life to dusty old parts once again.

Stephanie’s Journey

Its absolutely crazy how fast this journey of life is.. Clay and Oil was born when I realized just that. We are all just visiting in this beautiful life, what should I be doing to make my true soul happy? Naturally a field in the arts was my path. I have always been artistically expressive, from dancing to drawing, as long as I could move and create in my space, I was blissful! Oil Painting has been my love from the start, gates to my wildest impressions. The buttery texture leaves such beautiful brush strokes on the canvas, and maintains such rich pigment color, it has always captivated me. Texture will tell you the movement and story of how a piece is created, it adds an entire other element to painting. I knew oil painting was forever my medium, allowing me to dance freely documenting visual movements & expressions in my own color. Although I believe in order to grow you must try new things so I continue on experimenting with other materials not knowing another love awaits my path.

Pastels were the next choice of medium, I was longing to work with a raw material. I had been familiar with charcoal from my high school studies and had a wonderful time exploring working with exposed pigments again through pastels. This brought back many memories and when I remembered, my high school intro to ceramics class! I bought a bag of clay from our local Art store at the time and without looking back, created Clay and Oil. There is a connection with clay I feel, that I can't quite obtain in other mediums. With my hands I can form a useful object out of material that our earth has created over many many many years.   Working with that being my idea of clay can sometimes feel like I am sketching with my hands being able to make an object in real time straight from our soil.  Pottery has opened my eyes and allowed me to let go and enjoy what comes my way.  There is so much room for mistake in Ceramics but with that there is so much room for spectacular new things as well! I'm excited to continue to learn more about Pottery while still having my comfort and deep love of oil painting.  Ceramics allows me to let loose where oil painting I have complete control, bringing out my perfectionist personality. I feel like between Clay and Oil I really have the best of both worlds.