I am a native Floridian, artist, and teacher.
Growing up in lush, rural Florida seeded my love of being outdoors. I realized early on that nature can be amazing, beautiful, mysterious, and fierce. As an artist, I try to bring some of those qualities to life thru my sculpted characters.
I’ve had a fascination for animals for as long as I can remember: their role in our lives and their place in legend, fables, and fairytales. Also, animals and humans seem to share a few traits, so I often explore merging the two in my artwork.
Combining wildlife with plant forms is another theme I love experimenting with, partly just trying to capture the incredible beauty in plants’ natural forms, textures, colors, designs—and hoping to pass that appreciation on to others. Also, partly, as a reminder that we human caretakers need to do a better job here in the spaces we call Home, if we want to have our environment’s wealth of natural beauty and wildlife around to appreciate and inspire us for generations to come.
Process: All of my artwork initially involves stoneware clay—in sculpting each character’s head and form.
I devote alot of attention to texture—actual and imagined—and clay’s flexibility is perfect for accomplishing this. I might add that I absolutely love working with clay. Adding other materials to my ceramic work has been an evolving journey over the last several years, with a lot of experimentation involving metalwork, digital photography, and working with wood. The hand-wrought copper pieces, that are sometimes a part of my work, often involve texture—created by hammering, tooling, and soldering the copper metal. The wood pieces, mainly included in my “Stick Figures” series, are collected and then dried, sanded endlessly, and oiled with layers of Tung oil. Color is applied to the clay using both acrylics and glazes in a multiple layering process.
My work has been displayed and awarded in competitions and galleries throughout Florida, and found homes with collectors across the country.
I live on a small lake in Central Florida with my dog, Dixie, and four cats.
My studio is in-home and visitors are welcome. My second home is in Portland, Oregon—also a lush, wonderful place to explore the outdoors and inspire an artist!
I can be contacted at: Rackelman@aol.com, or cell phone 863 651 3664