Christine Herron
painter, potter, textile artist
My Featured Work:
My Story
“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.” - Rumi
“Everything that is made beautiful and fair and lovely is made for the eye of one who sees.” - Rumi
My Name is Christine Herron and I am a potter, painter and a textile artist.
I have always been a keen observer of nature. I grew up roaming the woods surrounding my New Hampshire home and meandering the small beach coves in the Summer. “Outside” was my playground and entertainment. Whether looking for shells or roaming open felds in search of wild fowers, I enjoyed and absorbed every detail. The iridescent lining of rough muscle shells, the delicate pink crinkled petals on our crabapple tree, the russet of old oak leaves all reside in my memory bank of color and form to be drawn upon.
As a child I was surrounded by whole cast of practical, multi talented neighbors. I helped out in their greenhouse, learned how to garden, to identify birds, where to look for May Flowers and Lady Slippers. I watched my father refne his skills as a cabinetmaker and my mother's sewing clothes.
People in my world were always creating useful things of beauty every day. Hand hewn cabinet doors, seasons of cultivated lilies, tulips and geraniums, embroidered dresses and glowing jars of jams and jellies. This is why making beautiful, useful things is second nature to me.
In High School I took painting classes with Sally Cole, an accomplished local artist. She encouraged me to paint whatever moved me and introduced me to color mixing and to the medium of watercolor. With her patient guidance I grew as an artist. She was the reason I applied to Rhode Island School of Design.
In 1985 I attended RISD. The frst year was spent on foundation studies where I learned about design, color, and form. Illustration was my chosen major. I took classes in painting, children's book illustration and editorial illustration. Attending RISD was a broadening experience for me.
After RISD, I couldn't bring myself to move to NYC to chase a career in illustration so I stayed in RI and started Red Chair Studio. Originally I designed hand painted pots and vases for the burgeoning gardening market. I had numerous representatives selling my work nationally at the gift markets in NYC, Atlanta and San Francisco. Two of my top accounts were Smith & Hawken and Ballard Designs.
Running a national business is challenging. The market is ever shifting and I was wearing too many hats. In 1998, I closed out my gardening line and moved with my husband from Providence to South Kingstown. Shortly after we became parents to twin sons and I put Red Chair Studio aside to be a full time mother.
When our boys started kindergarten, I spent more time in my studio. That is when I was drawn to hand dyeing. Working with silk, I employed my facility with color and design and developed a line of scarves. I reconnected with my reps and brought my new line to market. My scarves had a place in a multitude of unique, independently owned craft galleries like Artisan Gallery of North Hampton MA. and museum gift stores like the Folk Art Museum Store in NYC.
The call to explore other mediums and art forms is enticing, as many artists know. I took my frst pottery class in 2013. It was handbuilding with Anna Galloway Highsmith, a talented ceramic artist and teacher. This one class changed my whole perspective on making pottery. I enjoyed hand rolling slabs of clay and making patterns to create mugs, cups and dishes. The process of handbuilding with clay so closely related to cutting out patterns and sewing clothes to me. It was a revelation. I didn't have to throw on the wheel to work with clay! Ceramics also engage so many other creative elements'. Designing and refning patterns, contemplating form and function, surface design and ornamentation techniques to name a few.
I now teach others how to hand build with clay. I teach at South County Art Association and the Newport Art Museum. I also teach painting classes at RISD Continuing Education, South County Art Association, and the RI Watercolor Society. In 2019, during the Covid pandemic I developed two online painting courses Blue Poppy in Watercolor & Gouache and The Botanical Notebook. This year I developed a three part series called Getting to Know Watercolors where I teach those who want to build skills in the intricacies of the medium.
Currently I am hand dyeing scarves as well as making pots and porcelain jewelry and teaching hand building and watercolors. I have created a life where I do a little of everything.
For me, all of these pathways wind together and lead to beauty, joy and a sense of fulfllment. Hopefully this joy is passed on to you