Wambach, Emmanuelle, Blue, Borrowed, New, Old, glazed ceramic plate installation, Exhibited: Women of Visions retrospective at the Carnegie Museum of Art in June 2022. "Since I was a child, I have always loved lace. My mother would take out her wedding lace and I would look for pictures in the intricate weaving and find patterns that mirror the natural world. Tree branches, flowers, and spiderwebs would loop and curl before me, making a whole realm of possibilities. Depending on the country of origin, the period, or the method of weaving, lace, normally described as feminine, ornate, and fragile, can represent whole time periods. One can follow the history of fashion and industry through the making and manufacturing of lace. From the hand woven medieval lace of kings to the unique but machine made lace on a modern Claire Pettibone gown, lace is a symbol of beauty, wealth, and tradition. The history lace is our history. It captures moments in time, even the simple everyday moments. My lace textured ceramics are how I create my own gardens, honoring my mother’s love of gardening and lace. Using mid-fire stoneware clay, I create slab-built and wheel thrown canvases of simple forms. The modest shapes allow the lace to be focus of my work. I receive my lace from friends and find it in antique shops, fabric shops, and online. I impress the lace into the clay surface, then highlight the texture with colored underglaze and glazes. The breaking of the glazes over the lace pattern accentuates the natural beauty of the clay underneath. Together the lace impressions, clay, and glaze put a memory in stone. With clay, I can create heirlooms, gardens and memories that can last lifetimes. I love when lace has a story. I receive wedding lace, christening lace, lace from grandmothers, and lace from great grandmothers. Each piece has a story from the life of the person who gave it to me. Seeing these pieces of fabric that have been used so lovingly, and in some cases even hand woven throughout a person’s lifetime, is motivation for my creativity and imagination. The piece Old, New, Borrowed, and Blue” captures and entire 1980’s wedding dress and veil in time. Hot dress formed the beginning of a long, strong, and happy marriage.The impressions of the dress and veil capture the beauty, hope, and possibilities of the wedding day. But the piece also captures, through the platters’ cracks and imperfections, the love, hardships, and needed strength that will come with the future of the relationship. In fairy tales, the wedding is always the end. But with this piece, the wedding is just the beginning. There is so much more to come after the happily ever after." Artist Bio: Emmanuelle Wambach grew up in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in a multi-racial and cultural family that instilled a love of art in her at a young age. She received her BA in art from Swarthmore College in 2008, her Post Baccalaureate Certificate from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts on 2009, and her Master of Fine Arts in ceramics and sculpture from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 2012. Emmanuelle moved to Pittsburgh in 2014 to hone her ceramics skills and became part of Pittsburgh’s vibrant ceramics and arts community. In 2016 Emmanuelle traveled to Japan as part of a ceramic artist residency. She returned to Pittsburgh with a renewed love of ceramics and a new motivation to create. This love and desire to create new work, led her back into her past. Through her mother’s love or gardening, lace and fabrics, she discovered her own passion for lace and its history. This has lead to her current body of ceramic and mixed media work. Currently, Emmanuelle is a member of the Black women’s art collective Women of Visions and a teaching artist and Ceramics Cooperative Member at Union Project. She is an active member of many Pittsburgh arts and maker groups, and has pieces in several galleries and shops around the Pittsburgh area. Mentored by international sculptor Selma Burke at its founding, Women of Visions has sustained 40 years in the city of Pittsburgh as the only non-profit collective of African American women visual artists. Women of Visions mounts group and collaborative exhibitions, teaches classes to people of every generation, and networks to build relationships in the arts and lay community both in and outside the city of Pittsburgh. The members of Women of Visions represent a diverse range of lifestyles and artistic experiences; thus rich and varied expressions of personal, social, and political views are presented in each exhibition the group organizes. Over the course of 40 years, Women of Visions has continued to nurture and support professional and emerging women artists of color, and to bring to the general public the full richness and scope of our cultural heritage. Currently, Women of Visions is the oldest women’s organization of its kind in the country. They have experienced the years of both revolution and evolution. Now, with the country’s historic placement of a woman of color in the role of Vice President of the United States, this historic organization seeks ways to push themselves and their art to the next level. As part of their growth strategy, Women of Visions has inducted 16 new members in one year, amplified their mission with ground-breaking exhibitions, and are poised to pass on their legacy of establishing “excellence in the visual arts” to the next generation of African American women. In 2021, Women of Visions was awarded the title of “American Cultural Treasure” by the Ford Foundation and Heinz Foundation. 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