Earline Allen

October 2024 Issue
Lowcountry Originals

Photography by (top and bottom left)
Cassidy Dunn Photography

Earline Allen
Art: Ceramics and Acrylic Painting
Current Residence: Bluffton
Hometown: Logan, WV
Career: Artist, Ceramics & Painting (retired professor)
Family: Husband, Richard Allen


How did you choose this medium? What do you love about it?
My third-grade report card said that I was a dreamer. Guess that teacher was right. I’ve never stopped dreaming. My first masterpiece was a circus train created with crayons. I also loved to sing and to work with clay. Over the years these three things continue to be my passion.

As a Lowcountry Original you are unique. What makes you the most YOU!
Before I entered the first grade, my parents were divorced. This and early travels made me different from other children my age who were largely sheltered from life-changing events. Since I had no siblings and my mother worked, I spent a lot of time by myself. I spent my summers visiting grandmothers and my father, so I had little time to form many strong social bonds with children my age. My games were solitary. However, art was the greatest game of all.

Tell us more. Give us a peak of your art journey.
I always wanted to be an artist; therefore, my first degree was a BA in Art Education. I felt that becoming an art teacher would create a structure in which I could continue to create art while earning a living wage. I prepared well for my career as a teacher by completing an MA in art followed by an MFA in ceramics.

My first job was teaching junior high school. I absolutely loved it. My students were terrific. I started an art club that supported regular exhibitions and extended time classroom activities. My students and I loved working with clay, so to perfect these skills, I began working with a well-known West Virginia potter in his mountaintop studio—Jim Sanders. He helped me to perfect my throwing skills and taught me the aspects of being a professional potter. An opportunity soon followed to teach a few adjunct classes in Art Education at Marshall University. This provided the money to buy my first pottery wheel.

After four years teaching in public school, I began my 41 years of teaching at Marshall University, where I developed the ceramic program and established my artistic career. My work was published in The Best of Pottery, The Contemporary Potter, 500 Teapots Volume 2, and the Kutani International Decorative Ceramics Fair Kumatsu catalog (Ishikawa, Japan) Ceramics from Around The World. In China, my work was featured in a four-page article of “Ceramic Art” International edition, spring issue 39. I have also exhibited both paintings and ceramic work in numerous competitive and invitational exhibitions. In addition, I have conducted ceramic workshops at several colleges and acted as a ceramic consultant for schools and businesses. Examples of my porcelain ceramics can be found in the collection of The Huntington Museum, Huntington, WV, The Zanesville Museum, Zanesville, Ohio, and the Ross C. Purdy Museum of Ceramics, and Museum of the American Ceramics Society, Westerville, Ohio.

What’s the best encouragement you’ve ever received in pursuing your artistic talents?
My mother always told me to try my hardest and to be true to myself.

What is your dream project? Do you foresee it coming to fruition?
I would like to have another one-person ceramic exhibition. I would also like to prepare a wall in my studio to accommodate larger canvases. If I stay healthy, work hard, and focus, I should be able to do both.

What artist, living or passed, would you love to spend a day with?
What would the day look like?
I would like to spend the day with Fred Astaire, who is the epitome of greatness in his discipline. We would dance the night away, but it would be worth the bloody feet. When I’m doing my pottery, working so hard that all my body parts feel as though they are falling apart, I think of him and his partner Ginger Rogers, who, of course, did all her dancing backwards.

In your artistic pursuits, what is your proudest moment so far?
My proudest moment was at my retirement exhibition, when I looked at the presence of my wonderful students I had nurtured over the years, and who in turn nurtured me.

In addition to pottery, what is something people would be surprised to know about you?
I love to sing art songs and operatic arias. Yes, music is also one of the art forms I dearly love. While in college and afterwards, I studied voice, in addition to pottery and painting. I love all forms of expression. Why should we put ourselves in an artificial box?

If you could take a year off with no financial or time restraints, what would you spend a year doing, and with whom would you do it?
An artist needs a supportive spouse. It takes a special person to wait on a girlfriend who has plaster of Paris hardened on her from neck to toe for a sculpture project. It was quite a shock for him at the time but proved a good preview of coming attractions. He can pick the destination; I’ll be happy anywhere if we are together. That’s the way a muse should be treated.

What encouragement do you have for those who are
just beginning to pursue their artistic selves?
I would advise the aspiring artist to allow the light to shine on their uniqueness, to shout it out. To create is to be human. This is where “Art” begins.