Featured Artist   -   Trudie Palm

Trudie Palm 

April 6, 1925 - July 18, 2008

 

Trudie was born in China, the daughter of missionaries.  Her mother was from Germany and her father from the U.S.  They served in a very remote area and faced much opposition before moving to the United States when Trudie was 16.  When she was in her fifties Trudie and her husband Howard moved to Naperville, Illinois. 

 

Trudie decided to take a pottery class as a way of getting acquainted, even though in her words, "she had never even made mud pies."  At first, she hated the class because the teacher was using molds to form the pottery.  Trudie says, "I used to agonize when going to the class because I wanted to do more interesting things."

 

One day one of her classmates commented on how lovely some of the things she was playing around with looked, so she took some clay home to experiment.  That well-meaning innocent comment changed the course of Trudie’s life.   She later joined another class where the teacher taught "throwing" pottery on a wheel.  The teacher's wife suggested imprinting leaves on white clay instead of using the more common darker clay.  Trudie took this idea and developed her truly unique style of pottery.  She goes out in the woods and gardens, collects leaves and flowers, and presses them into the wet clay.  Then she paints over them, using them like a stencil.  She removes the  leaves before firing the items in her kiln.  

 

Her pottery is available at The Rainbow Craft Shop, 765 Woodlands Circle just off Peavine Road before you get to Fairfield Glade.  Call 931-456-7748.  Or visit their web site at:  www.rainbowtennesseecrafts.com.