Artist Details

Lee Turmala

Member Since 2018

Email Artist

I’ve been doing pottery for 40 years – all in my head!

Stopping at each potters space at every arts and crafts festival I ever walked through, I imagined myself creating wonderful three dimensional forms. So, after a full life and my first career, I put a few loves together… and look what came out!

EDUCATION
BFA Industrial Design, Center for Creative Studies, Detroit, Michigan
Cass Technical High School

A WONDERFUL LIFE … and Detours
Marriage, kids, business owner, brain injury, recession. Finally, I made it to a class at the Boulder Potters Guild. Four classes and four decades later, I’m back at the wheel.

PLAYING IN THE MUD
Scratching, carving, and cutting away parts of a surface layer to reveal the background is called sgraffito. Developed in Italy from the late 13th century, artists have been utilizing this technique on many different surfaces. When I design, I am guided by the form and respond to each piece as I decorate it. I love combining graphic arts with pottery in the art nouveau style and my own geometric style. Sgraffito is a long detailed process. It is therapeutic and fulfilling with exciting results.