Remarkably made in Lee County

COURTESY PHOTO Artist Ludmila Evans with her porcelain works. "We're remarkably made," Ludmila Evans said of the human race.

The same could be said of Evans' porcelain works. Evans' pieces, which range from the functional pitcher to the adorning earring, have striking and bold colors, which reinvigorate the viewer's memory with nature's effortless and oft-trampled beauty. You know these colors and in the accomplished splendor of Evans' unique products you will discover the artist and maybe more.

Her porcelain works are now on display at Gannon's Antiques and Art where she is the showcased "Artist of the Month" for September. She is often there on Saturdays and would be pleased to speak with the interested. As a conversationalist, she is open-minded and at ease discussing topics that range from the absurd to the sublime.

The secret to the striking colors of her work derives partly from the nature of porcelain.

"Porcelain really is basically a clay that is white," Evans said. "What makes porcelain important to some of us it's the ability when you put the color on you get truer color."

PHOTO CREDIT Ludmila Evans' porcelain works are on display at Gannon's Antiques and Art where she is the showcased "Artist of the Month" for September. Evans is a Czechoslovakian by birth, born in Presov. She was smuggled into the U.S. by her parents who failed to live up to their obligation to return to a country that took all they had.

Born in 1946, she was only 2-years-old when she landed in Pittsburgh under the pretext of seeing family on a visitor's visa. Once on American soil, her father took a job as a men's clothing store manager. Her father, Eugene, now lives with her.

Evans had both traditional and other forms of education that helped her form her style. Her husband, they've been married for seven years, had a teaching job in El Paso, Tex. There, she befriended members of the Ysleta tribe, Native Americans who were receiving government assistance in maintaining their heritage.

"I don't know what happened over the years," Evans said. "Whether it took hold or not."

While working with the Ysleta she learned about the importance of organic cow dung to Native American ceramic makers among other things.

"One of the workers…we really got to be good friends with them," Evans said. "And he took me up into the mountains of New Mexico. We would taste the rocks and chew the yucca for the brushes and I learned about the cow dung and why certain cow dung fires better for use in pottery…I got a real kind of an inside experience with the Indians there…that was the fuel. The cow dung burns. We would go and take out of the fields where the free range cows were. They fire better than the cows that were fed the richer food because they would not smoke too much. There was a technicality to how the dung would actually burn that was kind of wild, you'd be looking for these nice, big, round, flat patties. I mean, who would have thought?"

Although she doesn't use cow dung now, this sort of attention to detail informs Evans work and, if you appreciate good craftmanship, you will want to see it. The quality she exhibits may owe itself somewhat to her attitude towards artistry.

"Japan has had some awesome pottery, clay people," Evans said. "…years ago there was a village that was farmers. When the farming season was over they made pottery…it became a real pro and con argument: should they be subsidized by the country so that they could go on and produce pottery year round or would that change the nature of what they made- they would lose the essence of the pottery they made if that happened. I find that really interesting too because sometimes I think, 'Do I want to be pushed by the market that hard in order to survive? Or do I need to relax and just be happy that I can work as I want to without being pushed by the financial burden of having to make a living by it.'"

Although she learned from the Ysleta, she does not try to duplicate exactly what they did saying that is for them and she is doing what is for her.

A lover of nature, Evans bemoaned the lack of hiking opportunities in Lee County. She even misses winter and thinks that biking needs more encouragement. Before moving here, she lived in British Columbia for 12 years where mountain climbing was among her favorite pastimes. There she had a gallery called Ducks, Silk and Porcelain.

"The ducks was a wood carver and silk was a weaver," she said. "And I did the porcelain." ¦ If you go >>What: Ludmila Evans porcelain works >>Where: Gannon's Antiques & Art, 16521 S. Tamiami Trail, go in the store, make a sharp right, proceed to the far corner

>>When: Ongoing, she will be there Oct. 13 from 11 to 3 p.m.