Clarissa Pezone, a local artist who lives in Baltimore, Maryland, gave insight into her life and what drives her to create at a lecture held at McDaniel College. Her practice consists of predominantly ceramic sculpture that has themes of human form, mythology, and a view into the artist’s psyche. Now, despite being a successful artist, entrepreneur, and teacher, Pezone didn’t start out in the limelight. The lecture gave a beautiful overview of Clarissa’s life, explaining how she got to the success and fame she now experiences. Pezone grew up in Sacramento, California. Ever since she was little, she always loved art. Pezone shared cute pictures of herself as a toddler, finger painting in her backyard. Although baby Pezone wasn’t banging out masterpieces at age 3, she talked about how she started to develop her style early on and the intense pull she had to sculpt the human form. Pezone shared a picture and endearing story during the lecture about her life of a time when she was little and all she wanted was an American Girl Doll. Now, with the price of the doll being out of her family’s budget, her family refused to buy little Pezone the doll. Heartbroken at the absence of the toy, she found materials laying around the house and through her own creativity, sculpted her very own doll with paper, wire, buttons, and even yellow yarn to substitute blonde locks. Although the doll appeared a bit crude, for someone of a such age to take their dilemma into their own hands and sculpt a figure from scratch speaks the drive Pezone holds to create.
Pezone shared her back-and-forth journey of college and finding her style. She started her journey at Humbolt State University as a writing major, then switched to sociology. But her life’s path changed after taking a ceramics class on a whim. She shared how she initially struggled with her medium, but how her struggles with manipulating clay only drove her to work harder to master the material. She dove into the arts, and her determination drove her to taking classes over summer vacation to practice her craft. The more Pezone learned, the more she started to develop her unique style. She started putting human anatomy on her sculpted items like mugs and pots. She mentioned her fascination with the human body and aging, and her temptation to include it in her works. After graduating college with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts, Pezone started teaching ceramics classes and selling her work as as her profession. After working as a teacher and a businesswoman, Pezone went on to attend various impactful lectures and classes and went back for more schooling at several universities. A common theme in Pezone’s presentation was the drive to learn and improve. As Pezone continued to talk about her life, she mentioned a turning point in her story that would forever change her art. In 2020, Pezone suffered the loss of her mother to cancer. She was finishing grad school at this time while simultaneously losing one of the most important people in her life. While grief struck her hard, she used her feelings to create. She ended up making her final project installation about her experiences of grief and loss.
After this change in Pezone’s life, she graduated and was offered a position at Baltimore Clayworks. Pezone described her experience as having a “clay family”. She also received a grant to go study abroad in Rome and explore more with her fascination of Roman sculpture and mythology. She shared photos of her sculptures, revealing the impact that the experience had on her. Images of looming life-sized carminic sculptures, sculpted foxes, and renderings of old Roman sculptures flashed across the screen. She now works as a businesswoman and sells her ceramics, and she teaches classes at Carroll Community College. Also, she was hired to make installations and has several displays coming up in New York City. She will be studying abroad in Taiwan this summer to grow and learn more as an artist. This lecture was a fascinating example of how having drive can shape someone’s life. This lecture about her story can as inspiration to aspiring artists.