Parran Collery

About the Artist

How fortunate I am to have found the medium of ceramic tile.  My fascination with flora and fauna, meeting my technique of relief sculpted terra cotta, brought to a mouthwatering finish with my own custom glazes.  I love making tiles! I’ve always gravitated toward art and was encouraged in that passion by my mother, also an artist.  But somewhere along the way I got the notion that art might not be such a good career choice, and I started college as a psychology major.  Then one day I happened upon a ceramics class firing a raku kiln behind the art building, and I was hooked.  From that moment on I focused on art (graduating with a double major), and went on to obtain a Master of Fine Arts degree in sculpture.  After several years working as an adjunct ceramics instructor, I was offered an opportunity to work in a small production tile workshop.  I hadn’t realized there was such a tradition of tile making in America, and it was a great job; I learned something new almost every day for four years.  It was here that my interests in sculpture and decorative arts came together, and I met people making their living as artists, and I could imagine a way forward for myself. I started my own studio in Southern Maryland in 1997, and I continue to be curiously interested in the ordinary things we see every day:  birds, leaves, flowers, bugs, all aspects of nature.  I find inspiration in art history, especially Japanese woodblock prints, in poetry and excellent words, in friends who are amazing painters.  By representing images within the rarified form of a tile or mosaic, I hope to make our sense of the everyday more precious and profound.  In the words of Rachel Carson:  “Drink in the beauty and wonder at the meaning of everything you see.”  

Artist's Statement

In my work as an artist, I use the medium of relief sculpted clay tiles to explore themes of nature and the extraordinary in everyday life. By representing images within the rarified form of a tile or mosaic, I hope to make our sense of the everyday more precious and profound. I work exclusively in terra cotta clay, which imparts a warm, rich sub-tone to my bright and juicy glazes. These glaze formulas are my own creation, making my pieces entirely unique and one of a kind.