Ways To Connect
If you want to reach out or you are interested in purchasing an original painting, please send me a message and I’ll get back to you right away. One of my top priorities as an artist is to make my images available in affordable high-quality art prints. Many of the images in my paintings are available in a variety of giclée prints through Art of Place. I have provided links with each painting. Finally, if you have ideas about the meaning of a painting, please let me know. My work evolves in a mysterious way and I am aware that my understanding of it is partial, at best. I’d love to hear from you.
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Libby Hoagland Studio
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Nosotros somos el barro. "We are the clay".![]()
Early in my Oaxaca stay, master ceramicists Barb Campbell and Javier Cervantes (@3x3.taller) introduced us to their dear friend, renowned ceramic artist Rufina Ruiz-Lopez at the Taller Ruiz Lopez in Atzompa. Rufina is Zapoteca and practices the traditional techniques of hand-building passed down through many generations of ceramic artists in her family. She encouraged us to deepen our understanding of “barro”—which means mud and clay interchangeably. She spoke about the soul of the clay and that in many ways, we ARE the clay as well—clay that is animated for a time. We think we are making things out of the clay, but the clay is transforming us as we work. I became aware of my “clay nature” and sought its wisdom. At Rufina’s that morning we went deep into the heart of el barro which her family had harvested. We made ofrendas—offerings. By the end of the day, we had made many figures— and by the end of the day, we were no longer the same people that had arrived that morning. It was such a special learning experience for me.
Oaxaca, MX. Las Figuras de fertilidad. In 2022, I returned to Oaxaca to learn hand-building techniques from master ceramic artists Barb Campbell and Javier Cervantes (@3x3.Taller) After spending a day immersed in the beauty and power of pre-Columbian figures found in Meso-America at the Museo Rufino Tamayo (@museotamayo_oaxaca) we made our own figures. What did we want to encourage to grow and develop in our non-agrarian lives? It’s a great question to ponder often. I love contemplating hybrid forms of life and the possible synergistic capacities and genius they might possess. I have mentioned my fascination with horse-girl hybrids elsewhere—which I imagine would possess a huge-hearted magnanimity combined with an innocent, unbiased but sympathetic curiosity—for starters. Not surprisingly, one of my first pieces was this Horse Goddess. We made and used the proto-glaze terra sigilatta mastered by the first clay artists thousands of years ago. We finished our pieces with a low, smokey fire. I rubbed some iron oxide into her body—but I could have used anything—the soil on the ground, charcoal dust, powdered pigment.
This imaginary portrait features a woman in deep slumber with her ever-watchful blue horse looking at us, the viewer. As a young girl my favorite book recounted the adventures of a girl and her spotted horse as they explored the vast wilderness, solving mysteries, helping sick animals and catching bad guys hiding out in limestone caves. The girl and her horse understood each other wordlessly. And their combined intelligence, part-horse/part-girl, allowed them to outsmart malevolent forces no matter what shape they took. I thought that would be the perfect life and at the time had no other ambition than to live like they did! And for years when my horse and I explored the bluffs and caves along the Mississippi River and the woodlands nearby, when we discovered abandoned country churches—their roofs caved in and pianos still there— and lonely derelict farmhouses in the middle of cornfields, dark clouds of crows flying all around us— we lived that life. And then one day that dream-life ended. I came out of my reverie and saw all around me, a new world beckoning.