HANK SAXE

Hank Saxe has been working in ceramics for more than four decades in Taos, NM. He states, “A fascination with natural sciences led me to ceramics, an original meeting ground of art and technology. Starting out, I didn’t know how clays and minerals worked, but I thought I’d better figure out how to use that stuff. Still working on figuring that out, my sculptures are outcomes of investigation into process and materials and experimental interactions of form, color and texture.”

Hank Saxe and his wife Cynthia Patterson have created numerous large-scale architecture and sculpture projects, and developed and produced a line of architectural ceramics. Yet it is out of this practical aspect of their work that Saxe developed his personal creative process. In a studio geared to mechanical production, Saxe mastered his industrial equipment while also deploying it in the service of art, making his own creative inquiries on the side. “The challenge for me was to use the production tools in a way not dictated by necessity and efficiency, but open to possibility.”