82 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM {home & design} Gently grasping a vase from a 1,200-degree kiln, Ann Wagenhals begins a process that’s part ritual and part art. “I am dancing around the pot with horse hair as it singes and makes these beautiful lines,” the ceramacist describes as she applies the final design to a pot’s surface. “This is a time I feel really alive.” A longtime Palo Alto resident and prolific artist, Ann employs the centuries-old technique called horse hair raku along with other traditional firing methods. “I really like the freedom and joy I feel when I am creating,” she says enthusiastically. was always in the back of her mind—and even the subject of her college entrance essay. Little did she know her passion for the craft would become a lifelong endeavor. After working as a lawyer, then as an English teacher at Castilleja School in Palo Alto for many years, Ann decided to take a year off while raising her three children. It was then she rediscovered her zeal for pottery at the Palo Alto Art Center. There, she refined her skills under the guidance of Gary Clarien and Pixie Couch. Pixie introduced her “Things are always moving and I try to capture it in my work.” It all started when a teenaged Ann attended a ceramics course with her father as a bonding activity in Boulder, Colorado. “At one point, the studio director let me fire and run a gas kiln by myself,” she recalls. “It was a really valuable experience for me and it empowered me to believe that if I can do that, there must be a lot of things I can do.” Ann first came to the Peninsula to study art history and political science at Stanford University, but her interest in ceramics POTTERY fired up words by JENNIFER JORY • photography by GINO DE GRANDIS
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