Artist Profile - Jacquline Hurlbert - Sculpture

Jacquline Hurlbert first discovered the power of clay at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in art with honors in 1976. Starting with a kick wheel and a small ball of clay, she became obsessed with the hypnotic spinning process of throwing. After college, she began her sojourn west. Her first stop was Vail, Colorado, where she worked as a ceramics instructor at Colorado Mountain College. Eventually, she ended up in California, where she returned to college, earning her master’s degree in three-dimensional art/sculpture and ceramics from California State University at Northridge.

Returning to get her master’s degree proved to be a turning point in her history with clay. She started using the thrown form as a canvas for elements of the human form. Suddenly, pots were sprouting faces, torsos, and legs. Gradually, the figure superseded the thrown form until the figure stood on its own as sculpture.

In 1993, she moved to the Pacific Northwest, where she continues to work with sculpting the human form. The figures she creates dramatize the struggle for self acceptance through the continuing exploration of the various aspects of what we call personality.