Wesley anderegg biography

Bio.
Wesley Anderegg was born in Phoenix Arizona in 1958.
Wesley Anderegg was born in Phoenix Arizona in 1958.

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View Wesley Anderegg’s works featured on Ceramics Now Magazine

“I have always been a people watcher. In the first grade I did not play with the other kids. I stood back and watched. And I have been watching ever since. I watch what people do and imagine what they might like to do.

Life and society are such that we cannot always say and do what we like. However, in the imaginary world in which my ceramic people live, they can.

At the dawn of mankind primitive peoples fashioned clay objects. They sculpted about what they knew and wanted. Pregnant women and animals were the hot topics of the day. I think of my work much the same way. Though the topics may be different I feel a link to those old people sitting around playing with this beautifully plastic material.” Wesley Anderegg

Wesley Anderegg’s C.V. (resume) – View his works

EDUCATION
1982 – Bachelor of Science in Geography, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ

SELECTED AWARDS & HONORS
2003 – Curates, Lasting Impressions: The Unforgettable in Contemporary Ceramic Sculpture, Baltimore Clay

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His start in ceramics was serendipitous: while studying geography at Arizona State University, he happened to take an elective in the medium. Captivated, he went on to study it further at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, Colorado and again at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana, and was a resident artist at both sites. His practice evolved from wheel-thrown pottery to hand-building, which remains the basis of his sculptural and narrative work. Moving from pinch pots, to small figurines, to larger sculptures, his work evolved into what it is today: an exuberantly strange world populated by curious, angry little beings.

Anderegg’s work has been exhibited widely across the United States, and has appeared in numerous books and magazines including “Confrontational Ceramics: The Artist as Social Critic” by Judith Schwartz, “A Potters Handbook” by Glenn Nelson and Richard Burkett, “Handbuilt Ceramics” from Lark Books, “Ceramics Monthly” and “American Craft.” His work has won several awards and accolades, and is held in public collections

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Wesley & Donna Anderegg's ranch and ceramics studio in California.

“My life hasn’t changed, virus or not,” says Wesley Anderegg. “I never get off the ranch.” We caught him on his landline during lunch hour, smack in the middle of another grueling workday on his 22-acre property in the Santa Rita Hills of California. The day before he’d spent the morning weeding the vineyard (“It was 4 hours of hoeing!”), and the afternoon adding mulch to the vegetable garden and mowing a field. Anderegg’s wife, Donna, has had her hands full tending their goat herd, which welcomed four kids this spring. Oh, and then there’s the business of making art.

Wesley Anderegg, Road Runner Running, earthenware.

“Between the grapes and the studio work and the property, it’s pretty busy,” says Anderegg. He and Donna are both ceramicists—her work is functional, his is figurative—so they’re more accustomed to solitude than most. “Being a studio artist, it’s pretty lonely,&rdq