• tedolbest@yahoo.com
• 893-0736

Tedo Best Artist Statement

“A unique and colorful approach to ceramics, with a playful interweaving of impressions from the natural world. This describes the way that Tedo Best engages with her work, which has expanded to include imaginative painting and collage. This Chico-based artist embraced visual art at a young age, entranced with water colors, how they mixed and interacted. Her real clay education came later-after a long, productive teaching career-but her interest in artistic exploration stayed intact.

After mastering the clay basics and finding the wheel a bit mechanical, Tedo turned her focus to hand building, which has included pots, platters and most importantly, wall pieces. She essentially paints with glaze; her pieces owe much of their rich, layered effects to up to six firings, instead of the usual single time. In fact, Tedo delights in glaze accidents and surprises-usually avoided in a more conventional approach to ceramics. She finds the unexpected often yields wonderful visual discoveries and effects.

When working with collage, Tedo’s approach is similar: layers of paint or small objects for a provocatively multi-faceted effect. Throughout her work, one may find clay, paint, beads, bark and other pieces of the natural world that often inspire a deeper feeling. Tedo quotes Chuck Close-famous for his immense photo collage portraits-who observed, ”There are more interesting ways to depict an image than just painting it.” Tedo has long felt that with an eye to stretching the medium a bit, she can combine unlikely materials to suggest natural elements, or even emotions, which may make one see a bit differently.

A graduate of CSU San Jose, Tedo also attended the Chicago Art Institute. Her work has been shown throughout Northern California, with group shows in Chico, Paradise and Sacramento and one person shows in Mendocino, Willits, Chico and Covelo. She is represented by the Johnson Gallery of Fine Arts in Madrid, New Mexico.”