Have Kiln, will Travel; Leslie Wallace loves Apalachicola

If you've noticed a pack of engaging ceramic hounds prowling in the window of Blue on Avenue E, you may be interested to learn that their creator is local artist Leslie Wallace-Coon. Wallace recently relocated to Franklin County with her architect husband George. She now rents studio space in Wefing's Antique Mall on Water Street and creates ceramic sculptures both on commission and for retail sale.

"I came here thinking I wouldn't be able to make it, but it's been wonderful. Joe Taylor kindly agreed to put some pieces in his shop and I think we've both been surprised at how well they sold," Wallace said. "I do sculpture now, but I was a painting and print major in college. I work with clay as if it were a canvas or an etching plate with form that can be pulled and manipulated into what my mind's eye is envisioning. My prints evolved into sculpture and from there my art just took off."

Wallace's dogs, which sell for anywhere from $200 to over $1,000, were inspired by dogs in lithographs she created.

"My dog sculptures are patterned after a dog in my etchings and he is really patterned after a man, Mr. Average I call him. Right now I've started taking all of my etchings and turning them into ceramic base-relief. I've done a giraffe, I do fish, and I'll do anything I'm asked to. I love to watch what is going on around me and what I see are humorous contradictions and extremes all working together to make art real for me. A large part of my work deals with relationships between people, focusing on the little paranoias, sexual tensions and self absorptions in our daily lives," she said.
Wallace's own dog is a corgi, "my fat, sweet, little Edgar."

Wallace received a degree in Art Education at Kennesaw State College and a BFA from University of Georgia. Her work was first shown by the Dorothy MacRae Gallery in Atlanta. Since then, her art has been shown in Massachusetts, Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin.

"My goal as an artist is to have a body of work that draws you in, makes you look, laugh and forget where you are for a time because you're caught up in the same attention to details and subjects that inspire me," Wallace wrote in a short autobiography.