Adventures in Clay: Artist’s work takes her from Banana Factory to The Wall Street Journal

By Katie Zabronsky

Deb Slahta works her way around the ceramics classroom, knowingly commenting on the
techniques of her pupils.

“Always start your wheel first,” the Banana Factory’s resident ceramic artist and popular teacher says as if she has spoken these words many times before.

For more than 15 years Slahta has been teaching classes at the Banana Factory, where she also has her own studio, working on the pottery wheel and firing up the kiln to keep up with the demand for her work. She teaches several sessions of an “Adventures in Clay” class throughout the year, as well as art classes for the arts center’s B-Smart after-school enrichment program and summer camps for kids.

Slahta juggles making her own work with teaching classes – sometimes with difficulty, she says, especially since her career has recently undergone a renaissance of sorts. In recent months, her work has received a great deal of attention after several of her ceramic pieces were put on display at Liz O’Brien’s New York gallery, a popular shopping destination for design leaders. One of the pieces was even featured in the Wall Street Journal Magazine.

Slahta says she made her connection with O’Brien at last year’s Allentown Art Museum Cocktails & Collecting event, and sales of her art have increased since it has been on display in New York. Slahta says that many people often think they need to go to the Big Apple to find quality fine art like her ceramics, but the reality is there is a diverse array of talent right here in the Lehigh Valley. It was because of her connection with O’Brien, Slahta says, that one of her pieces was included in the Wall Street Journal. The magazine published a series of still-life photographs, and Slahta’s stoneware ceramic jar, one of
the three pieces from her Millennium Series, was featured prominently in one of the images. She says she received many calls after the magazine came out asking to buy the piece, but it had already been sold.

As a result of the recent exposure, Slahta has renewed interest in being in the studio, creating work for exhibit as well as for sale.

“There’s definitely motivation when you know that your work is in demand,” she says. “Without deadlines, I don’t seem to work too well, but having them also makes me crazy.”

When it comes to teaching, Slahta’s students span from people who have no clay experience, to those who have done wheel throwing in college or high school and want to continue. She says she especially enjoys watching the progress of someone who hasn’t worked with clay before. In the summer, she also loves to teach hand building and wheel throwing summer camps for kids. Although wheel throwing is her specialty, she likes teaching all aspects of pottery.

“It’s rewarding to see how kids react with clay and what they
come up with,” she says.

Slahta says it’s important to expose youth to various opportunities so they can discover what they are passionate about. This is especially important to her because she was a math major in college, and it wasn’t until she took a pottery class that she realized her love of the art, eventually devoting her career to it.

“I’m influenced by things that you see in nature, patterns—it all goes back to the math,” she says. “Everything in nature is very mathematically influenced. It’s everywhere you look. Everything you see has its roots in math somehow.”

Over the years, Slahta’s interest in mathematics and geometry has not faded, and in fact it remains a huge influence on her work. She designs her pieces using elements of geometry and sectioning off designs using tape. Oftentimes her designs repeat around the piece three times, something that’s evident in both her stoneware and raku work. People often comment that her pieces look like they’re Southwestern or African, but she says she incorporates patterns and shapes that are popular in all cultures.

“It’s almost like I’m creating my own language rather than copying other cultures’ designs,” she says.

Katie Zabronsky was a public relations intern with ArtsQuest last fall. She
majors in journalism at Lehigh University and resides in Stamford, Conn.