Overview:
Artist and Coronado resident Mary Hale is part of the movement to keep the diminishing artform of porcelain painting alive.
The porcelain pieces arrive at Mary Hale’s Coronado home fully constructed and glazed. They’re white as seafoam and are as smooth as the ocean’s swells, glistening with the filtered sunlight. Hale said some of the best porcelain is so translucent you can see your hand through it if you hold it up to the light.
Hale adds the color, character and texture to these pieces. Scraps of inspiration are strewn throughout her studio: pictures of jellyfish, art books and her biggest inspiration – her backyard.
Through the home studio’s windows, flowers of all sorts on the ground and hanging from trees or the fence insulate her home. Hummingbirds and orioles are regular visitors. The fountain burbles and bubbles – its song drifting in through the screen doors. The garden presses in, trying to make its way into the home. And she lets it.
You can see the garden’s inspiration in her art, displayed throughout her home.
“I’ve been a gardener ever since I was a little kid,” Hale said. “I’ve always had a flower garden, and I love flowers.”
When Hale talks about the porcelain artform, what inspires her and how she approaches it, she smiles and her eyes widen a little. She points and gestures, her emphatic passion for the practice on the move. She’s been doing porcelain painting for more than 40 years. And in some ways she said it feels like she’s hit the pinnacle in her craftsmanship. Now, she shares her knowledge and expertise with her handful of students who come to her home studio each Thursday.
“I’d rather just share my knowledge and get other people into it versus just continuing on my own,” Hale said.
“Every once in a while, I think, why am I doing this? What in the world am I doing?” She said, chuckling. “But I just enjoy it. I enjoy the group [of students] I have.”
Hale is a leader in the world of porcelain painting. Within San Diego, she’s played a significant role in the art community.
She served as the president of the Coronado Art Association and past president of the Coronado Money Honey$, which is a stock group for women. She was also a Coronado representative for the Port of San Diego’s public art program. And, she sells her work at the local Historical Association Museum store. Among these accomplishments, she collaborated on artwork with esteemed artists such as Alzora Zaremba.
Within the past year, she’s started stepping away from these leadership roles to focus on art, time with family and travel. But, she has not stopped investing in the art community.
“I do enjoy teaching, and I enjoy helping people bring out their own style so they’re not just painting like me,” Hale said.
Although she does this as a way to give back to the artform that’s given her so much over the years, she said in today’s changing art world, it’s a necessary action.
The growing popularity of minimalist and modern design has chipped away at interest and investment in porcelain and the intricate painting practice. She said it’s a different time from when she first started.
Hale recalled her first memory of her chosen artform. Her childhood best friend’s grandmother had a studio that housed art and porcelain. When Hale and her friend had playdates, Hale would entice her friend to sneak into the studio with her to admire the art.
Years later, Hale attended the LA County Fair in the 80s. There, she stumbled across porcelain painters at work. They left a particular impact on her.
“They said, ‘Why don’t you try it?” Hale said. “I thought, ‘I can’t paint. I don’t have any talent at all. And they said anybody can do it.”
“So I thought, ‘Okay, well that sounds good. I’ll try it,’” Hale said. “I started doing it and I just really got hooked on it.”
A woman nearby Hale’s home taught night classes, and Hale gradually got plugged into the thriving community of porcelain painters. She also took art classes in the evening from Cal Poly Pomona and Mt. San Antonio College.
“Back in the 80s, it was a thing because there was a revival of the Victorian era, so we had so many people doing it,” Hale explained. “We’d have shows with 300 people exhibiting – big shows, big community… It was really fun, and now it’s really dribbled down to next to nothing. Hardly anybody does it.”
Hale said only artists like herself and those in her community are holding on to the practice and also infusing it with their own style and experiences.
It took her years to find her own style. The process requires patience. She said it’s unlike drawing and other paint forms.
“Until you do it, master it, learn it, study it and trial and error it, you don’t always know how your colors are going to fire, how your piece is going to fire, what color can go with what paint,” Hale said.
At the moment, Hale and her students are painting jellyfish onto vases. The process takes time and requires experimentation.
“It’s almost like a science because it’s not like oil where you could just oil paint or watercolor where you put it on and you see what you get,” Hale said. “Until you actually put it in the fire and pull it out, you don’t really know.”
As layers of different kinds of paint retaining distinct elements and materials are added to the vase, it goes into the kiln for multiple firings. Each paint transforms under the heat, producing its own unique color or texture. Unlike ceramics, which typically only go through the firing process a few times, the porcelain painting process requires multiple firings to layer on the complexity and dimension of intricacy required of each individual piece.
“They’re just really totally different,” Hale said. “Painting on porcelain is probably more like… when you see people who do beautiful portraits on oil on canvas – so very, very detailed. Versus, to me, ceramics aren’t as detailed. It’s more like abstract [art], and it’s fired very hot and it’s glazed very differently.”
Some of the pieces on display throughout her house took months of painting and firing to create.
But in the end, it’s worth it. Throughout the process, she shared what she feels:
“I just feel happy. I feel very happy and content,” Hale said. “When they come out, they’re just vibrant and beautiful.”
And, it’s not just Hale who is compelled by the final product. The Coronado Art Colony awarded her first place this year for her porcelain plate titled, “The Queen of Coronado.”
Tina Christiansen, the founder of the colony, said Hale has many sides to her painting abilities.
“I admire her delicate brushwork, and incredible control within the fine art detail demands of porcelain painting,” Christiansen said.
In her free time, Hale has also taken up oil painting and plein air paint. She is even dabbling in water color. Christiansen said a different side of Hale is on display in her oil painting.
“When she paints in oils on canvas, she loosens up and her colors can become a bit wild, because the pigments can flow freely without the firing process of porcelain which can limit her palette,” Christiansen said.
But porcelain remains her tried and true practice, and she’s happy to share it and her Coronado studio with others during her art classes on Thursdays.
Although the future of porcelain painting is still taking shape, Hale seems undaunted. She’s inspired by artists like Peter Faust who are adding their own flair to the practice and her students who continue to impact her.
“One of my students today brought her little seven-year-old niece to class,” Hale said. “I was trying to explain to her and show her how this color that she’s putting on is really going to turn out to be that color when it comes out. I think that’s how we maybe get some people hooked. These little kids, maybe they can remember and relate when they get older and maybe they’ll want to try it again. I’m hoping that we can get more people interested in it.”
And even when the porcelain pieces don’t turn out as expected coming out of the fire, Hale still sees potential in them. They end up back in her place of inspiration (her garden), broken into shards and reimagined as mosaics. She gets back to the studio, ready to paint and try again.
To learn more about Mary Hale, visit her website https://www.maryhalefineart.com/ Her award winning piece, “The Queen of Coronado,” will be on display at the Coronado Library beginning Aug. 10, through the end of October.
