Call of the wild: Sandy and Michael Kadisak find artistic inspiration in New Mexico's creatures
Dec. 11—Sandy and Michael Kadisak sculpt ceramics with imagery of a Noah's Ark of wildlife surrounding their Cochiti Lake home.
Birds, coyotes, prairie dogs and otters cavort across their functional and decorative ware. The latest animal additions include hummingbirds, owls and cats. The couple's work is available at Wild Hearts Gallery in Placitas.
"When you don't move around your whole life, you get a connection to the land and the people and the landscape," said Sandy Kadisak. "I see La Bajada Hill and the river is between us and right behind us are the Jemez Mountains."
A half-mile from their home, a cave tunnels into a cliff where great horned owls nest. The couple sculpted the birds into spirit animals.
"We've wanted to do the great horned owls for years," said Sandy Kadisak. "I always start them in rough clay and I pass them to Michael to refine them. I mix the glazes."
At one time, the owls settled in the trees and soared over their home.
"You could hear them in the house because they were so loud," said Sandy Kadisak. "The great horned owl to me is about wisdom, mystery and intelligence."
Last January, she was cross-country skiing when a flock of mountain bluebirds soared nearby. The artist turned the sight into a free-form plate.
"I was skiing and they went along with me," she said. "They became an inspiration. There were maybe 100 of them."
The couple met at Northern Illinois University and have been working together ever since. Both artists taught there.
They moved to New Mexico in 1993. All of this animal attraction ends up in the couple's artwork. Sandy Kadisak paints the glaze; Michael Kadisak usually sculpts and molds the clay, usually stoneware or earthenware. They make functional ware — think platters and spoon rests — as well as sculpted animals. A zoo consisting of a bighorn sheep, a ram and a bear surrounds the Holy Family in a Nativity set.
"I tend to do the more strength-required stuff," said Michael Kadisak, "and Sandy tends to paint the intricate detail."
A woman's face emblazons a bowl next to some hummingbirds. Sandy Kadisak also teaches both children and elders in the Cochiti area at pop-up events. The woman's face represents a former student.
"A lot of the elders here, some from the pueblo, want to make things," she said. "The last one I had was with elders and youth at someone's house."
The cat pieces were inspired by neighborhood felines and Sandy Kadisak's personal nostalgia.
She grew up near downtown Chicago, where her grandmother set the table with cat plates.
"It was the smell of coffee, the sound of jazz music and my grandma whistling," she said. "I grew up with a creek behind my house and I would pull up the clay."
Michael Kadisak prefers clay, although he majored in painting because of the lack of pressure to invent something no one has seen before.
"Your ability to use that (clay) tradition to be more evocative is much more important than discovering the next big thing."
One of Sandy Kadisak's students said she loved clay because she could make anything.
The couple are bringing more than 100 pieces to the exhibit.
