Melody Shipley

           Since 1996 when Melody completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, TN, her journey in life has taken her from being a manager in a major retail hardware store, to living out of her truck to ultimately becoming a wife and a mother.  Throughout her journey, she has been a potter, finding her strength, peace, and inspiration from the beauty of nature, and then recreating her vision of that beauty in the forms and surfaces of the pots she makes.  Each pot is a separate landscape, a separate path, or a separate person in her journey of life. 

       Her thrown and altered functional and large, one of a kind sculptural vessels are reduction fired in a gas kiln.  She uses both stoneware and porcelain, and hand carves each piece. She applies several different layers of glaze to achieve the rich textures of her surfaces.  She hopes that each one of her pots reflects the peace and beauty that she finds in nature, and the joy she finds in her current journey as a wife and a mother.

       Melody’s work has been exhibited and sold regionally, nationally and internationally. Her most recent exhibition was  "Summer Landscapes" at the Felix G. Woodward Library at APSU in Clarksville, TN.  Her work was also shown in  “The 2007 World Exhibition of Lucky Pig Teapot” celebrating the Chinese New Year in Zhujiajiao, China. Her work has had numerous collectors including the Shanghai Museum, and can currently be seen at Seasons: The Museum Store in Clarksville, TN, the Clarksville Downtown Market, and in her new storefront Trenton Clayworks and Gallery.  She conducts regional workshops, such as at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC and in area public schools through the Artist in the Schools program and the Community School for the Arts at Austin Peay State University.
Check out the following link to the 2007 World Exhibition of Lucky Pig Teapot:

http://sites.google.com/site/luckychinaorg/exhibiton-2007