Sharon Ho – Optimism and Co.

Sharon Ho is a contemporary ceramic and assemblage artist whose works express movement and life through hand built, organic forms. Vessels are bulbous, ripe with possibility and invite holding. Surfaces suggest fluidity, relying on undulating hand built texture and softly layered glazes to reflect light in unexpected ways.

Her assemblage artwork juxtapose ceramic centerpieces with felted wool, fibre, driftwood and found objects in combinations of textures that are clearly influenced by the sea and forests that surround her home on Orcas Island in the Pacific Northwest.

Originally from Singapore, she learned ceramics under Jessie Lim, an established sculptor and potter. In the U.S., she practiced in the studio of the ceramist Mary Jane Elgin before establishing the Felt + Ceramics Studio|Shop in Eastsound on Orcas Island with a fiber artist in 2014. In 2018, she was part of ‘Surface Dwellers—Interpreting Nature’s Skin’, a well-received, three-person show at the Orcas Center. Sharon has shown in ‘Edge Art Collective’ group shows, and is regularly on the annual Orcas Artists’ Studio Tour.

Together with another artist, Sharon created and facilitates ‘Clay Gestures In A Pinch’, mindfulness-based workshops using clay as a medium to practice techniques and exercises that bring awareness to our mental space for creative expression. Her 2019 collaboration with her studio mate, the COCOON series of mixed media pieces, is featured in the publication, Ōde-Orcas Island. In 2019, she will help jury and curate the inaugural Spring Makers Fair of the Orcas Chapter of the San Juan Makers Guild. Sharon is also on the selection panel for the 50th Anniversary Sitka Art Invitational in Oregon. Sitka’s unique melding of art and ecology resonates with her and she continues to create work that remind us of our need for the natural world.