North Georgia Arts Guild – Martha Ogletree 16 Christmas Collector Series – John Shivers

The Arts North Georgia Arts Guild

The Magic of Color and Texture in Martha Ogletree’s Pottery By Tricia Moore

The lovely color schemes in Martha Ogletree’s pottery might be the first thing that draws you to her work. Or it might be the many different textures she uses to make each piece truly unique. Then, there is also the variety of shapes and sizes that she works with that makes her work eye-catching. Martha states that no two pieces of her pottery are exactly that same. “Each one captures my mood at the time or personality so that it speaks ‘Martha’,” she says.

The beautiful colors in Martha’s pottery did not come by accident or quickly or easily. She says that while she feels that she has definitely found her look, it took “years and years of trying different glaze colors and applications, and learning how to properly fire them in my electric kiln” for her to achieve that. Martha loves blues and thus incorporates some blue in everything that she creates. You might say it is her base color from which her color combinations flow. She says that wheat and a small amount of rust color can make the blue “pop”, and sometimes she uses a spearmint green or desert sand yellow to “change it up a little.”

Being particularly interested in texture, Martha has experimented with many different tools and methods to incorporate texture into her pieces. These include many natural objects such as leaves, shells, tree bark and pinecones, as well as a handcarved rolling pin, burlap and even decorative buttons. And she is always on the lookout for some new interesting texture to incorporate into her work. She even creates her own molds in her quest for texture. Martha’s artistic journey began when she was “around six or seven” and her mother gave her a pastel set that she had used in high school. Her mother was an artist who “painted exclusively in acrylics and mostly on canvas.” She also did copper enamel jewelry, which she fired in her own small kiln. Martha states that her mother was her biggest cheerleader when it came to her creativity, and that she bought her brushes and paint so that Martha could express that creativity.

Tricia Moore is a retired teacher, having taught both English and Art in public and private school settings.

She is currently an active member of the NGAG and has held several positions on the board. With her background in both art and writing, she feels that writing the NGAG featured artist article in the Laurel of Northeast Georgia is a good fit and something that she will greatly enjoy doing.

It was many years, a marriage and three sons later that Martha took her first pottery class. She states that it gave her an outlet to express herself in a “way that was positive.” “I could focus on kneading and wedging the clay, and I found that when I was through doing that, all my frustrations were gone. I could go back to ‘mothering’ with a new perspective.” She found that she loved all the facets involved in working with clay, from using the wheel to form her pottery to working with glazes. She states that she became fascinated with the effects that could be achieved by layering the glazes over each other and over various textures. Over the years she has taken many pottery classes under several different instructors. Due to personal issues, including caring for aging parents and a husband diagnosed with leukemia, Martha did not have the opportunity to work with clay for several years. It was after the passing of her parents and husband that she was drawn back into it by trying something new – slab building with clay. She took a series of classes at the Hudgens Art Center in Gwinnett in slab building and became “hopelessly hooked” on it. In addition

to the hands-on classes Martha has taken, she watches a lot of you tube videos on the subject of clay. CLAYSHARE with potter Jessica Putnam Phillips, and THE CLAY LADY out of Nashville, Tennessee are two of her favorites. When Martha met her current husband, Thomas, they were both widowers and had been caregivers for loved ones. “Our caregiving experience became our first bond of friendship,” Martha states. Thomas knew nothing of her artistic talent until their second year of marriage when she asked him if he minded if she signed up for a pottery class. Not only did he not mind, he was very excited for her and became her biggest fan. He bought her the main tools of the trade – a kiln, slab roller, top-of-the-line wheel and adjustable stool that has made working in clay even more enjoyable for her.

Martha can be reached by texting to her cell phone at 678-488-1774, emailing her at MarthaOgletree@hotmail.com and on Facebook at Martha Ogletree Pottery.

The Arts I Write Much Better Than I Hammer and Saw By John Shivers

In early 2018 a reader began to pester me to write a Christmas novel. I had fifteen books in print, with several more still rattling around in my head. I didn’t need another book idea to further muddy the brain cells. But the idea of a Christmas-themed book intrigued me. The Muse and I collaborated, and Three Gifts for Christmas was born. It was just a one-time deal. Yet many declared the book Hallmark® movie quality. Others demanded to know about the next Christmas book. Say what? Fast forward to 2022. In the fall of 2021, we sold our condo to go back to the family farm and build our dream cottage. We moved into very small, tight temporary quarters. In early January, I began work on Rekindling Love for Christmas, about a young father who lost his wife in a horrific accident. Unable to cope, he abandons his young son who was almost killed with her. Where the genesis of this storyline originated, I don’t have a clue. Suddenly, one day, it was just there, and it’s slightly different from the storylines and main characters in the previous four Christmas novels – Three Gifts for Christmas, Weaving a Family for Christmas, Moonshine for Christmas, and A Blessing for Christmas. Anthony Dawson, the absentee father, is suddenly confronted with the demand that he reassume his parental responsibility or the boy will go into foster care. How Anthony rises to the occasion, and how he doesn’t, with a son who doesn’t remember him, is the nugget of this story. And for too long, a nugget was all it was. I was working every day with the carpenters to stretch our dollars. In hindsight, I’m much better at putting words together than I am at sawing boards and nailing them into place. I should have put my hammer down and jumped on the keyboard, because there almost wasn’t a 2022 Christmas book. But Christmas is a time of miracles, and a season of love. I’m thinking that Christmas magic showed itself a little early this year, because I managed to write more than 50,000 words in slightly more than three weeks, thus rekindling the book that almost wasn’t. And I didn’t have to use either a hammer or a saw to make it happen!

The Christmas Collector Series Stories of the Miracle that is Christmas