Cat with Bird

Galerie Michelle features the art ceramic art of Vicki McComas. Vicki has been working seriously in clay for 35 years. She graduated from The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in 1978 with a degree in Graphic Design. Vicki worked for several years teaching clay for The Baltimore Bureau of Recreation in their after school programs and in 1985 she started taking Continuing Studies clay classes at MICA. She has taken a class every semester since then creating new and exciting images using different methods of firing and glazing. Several years ago Vicki became a member of The Potter's Guild of Maryland and also started teaching there. She has had numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout the U.S and has work in many private collections in both Europe and the U.S. One prominent Baltimore musician Edward Polochik has been collecting Vicki’s work since 1979.

She has been called an urban folk artist. She builds her world, beliefs, and her philosophies using clay; Old row houses and their contents and shrines to peoples everyday lives. She has a love of gods that share the same foibles as man. Raven in Haida Indian tales (lusty, bawdy trickster} yet he releases man onto earth, gives him genitals and discovers light - Coyote in southwestern Indian myth - Rabbit in African tales. Much of Vicki’s imagery comes from days when she was a youngster and received old Japanese fairy tales and legends, fish gods and goddesses, tales of monkeys and dragons, kokeshi dolls and netsuke’s sent from her Aunt who lived in Japan. Vicki loves animals, especially cats, and incorporated her passion for animals and fantasy into her work.