Susy Siegele, Michael Haley

1953 Born Coffeyville, Kansas

EDUCATION

1977 BA Texas Woman’s University, Denton, Texas

PRIMARY WORK EXPERIENCE

1976Studio Potter

Michael Haley and Suzy Siegele have been working together since they met in the 1970s. During their careers they have produced a large body of dinnerware using colored porcelain.

They mix numerous oxides into the clay body creating the thirty or so shades of porcelain used in their work. Various colored clays are stacked, sliced, extruded, or otherwise manipulated and constructed into loaves which are then sliced, like bread, into thin slabs from which their dinnerware is made. The imagery they place in the clay is drawn from visits to the desert, the Caribbean, the art of M. C. Escher, aboriginal dream paintings and the natural world around their studio.

Siegele and Haley use an unusual firing technique to achieve the quality of the surfaces on their work. They begin the firing process using propane and at around 1600F they begin to stoke the kiln with cedar splints and finish the firing with both gas and wood.