3 local artists explore creative passions with products made from clay, wood and glass

Kate Christodal could not have been more fascinated with the Colonial Williamsburg potter who made a pitcher from a ball of clay. Seeing him work while on her sixth-grade class trip sowed seeds that eventually blossomed into her career.

Years later, Christodal would take ceramics classes while attending high school in Needham, Mass., and decide to become a pottery artist. She studied her craft at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. Then she moved to Charleston in 2001, on the day she received her bachelor of fine arts degree.

She beams when speaking of her work.

"I do functional art dinnerware," says Christodal, who works in clay, porcelain and stoneware. "I like to ruffle the edges because that makes it look like the clay is dancing." An elevated star bottom raises her pieces off tables and counters and has become an identifying feature of her work.

Still, there is more to crafting home goods than artistic interpretation.

Charleston home goods crafters, including Anna Ruggiero, a wood-turner, and Lane and Cheryl Carlson, who work with fused glass, think a lot about how an object will be used, how often it will be used and who is most likely to use it before producing their lines.

All of Christodal's pieces, which include bakeware, cookware and tableware, are dishwasher safe and can be used to serve food, she says. And while she enjoys making all of her them, some are more enjoyable to make than others, she says.

"I enjoy making bowls most of all. I'm just drawn to the open form because it is very versatile and, artistically, I can change the features to match a buyer's needs," says the artist, who won "Best of Show" at the Coastal Carolina Fair in 2007.

One of her more popular items is the berry bowl.

Wood turning

When Anna Ruggierro inherited her grandfather's 1948 Shopsmith, she already was proficient in using its disc sander, drill press, horizontal drill and table saw. She didn't, however, know how to use its fifth tool, the lathe for turning wood.

She received the Shopsmith in May 2007, learned to use the lathe and quit her job in June and opened Southernlyon Designs in July. Now, the wood-turner designs and sells boxes, corkscrews, oil lamps and other objects for the home.

Ruggiero, who grew up on the marsh in Charleston, says the marsh environment inspires the color choices used on her marsh boxes, a type of trinket box made from the wood of diseased South Carolina-grown trees. She fills the cracks and fungi damage with a mixture of colored resin and stone flakes.

Her oil lamps and votive candleholders are made with scraps of up to 40 different species of exotic woods. Scraps left over from making furniture, musical instruments and other items are glued together and sold. She buys them from a distributor and shapes them into light sources.

"They are practical and useful and it feels good to pick them up," Ruggiero says. "There is something that is solid about them."

Ruggiero's colorful corkscrews, however, are her most popular creations, she says. The wood-turner says they appeal to buyers because they are useful, eye-catching and take up less drawer space than traditional corkscrews. Most of her pieces sell for $30 to $50.

Fused glass

Cheryl Carlson grew up in a family of stained-glass workers but resisted working with glass until she met her husband, Lane Carlson, who makes and restores church windows.

Now they jointly design and make fused-glass pieces for the home, including those from recycled wine, juice and energy drink bottles.

Their green line, made with recycled bottles, is different from the funky flat bottles or ash trays seen during the 1960s and '70s, Cheryl says. They are functional products for serving food such as bread, cheese and sushi, as well as for lighting, she says.

The glass artists say people ship bottles from across the United States for them to work with. So, many of the items they make have a story or two behind them. And now that many wine bottles are works of art, their green line is even more interesting.

"You take their product and our talent and we can make something people actually use and talk about. We have brides that will send us a wedding invitation and we use it to make a special piece for them to give to attendants. The guys pick their (groomsmen) favorite liquor and we make cheese trays with the bottles."

Lane, owner of Old World Glass Studio, says he contributes the technical skill to the team, but his wife is the great dreamer.

Sometimes, however, her creativity challenges his skills, says Lane, who has 36 years in stained-glass trade and 25 in home goods.

"Mostly I enjoy making the bread trays, useful artistic items," Lane says. "The green line sells best because it is clever and people say 'Why didn't I think of that.' "

Reach Wevonneda Minis at 937-5705 or wminis@postandcourier.com.