Very Nice Mary Louise !

This is an article recently published in the Monroe News Star written by William Caverlee

Once, when she was 10 years old, Louisiana Tech University art professor Mary Louise Carter visited Mexico with her family. There, among the crowds of people and food stalls and street life, she happened to see a local artisan making pottery in front of his shop. The 10-year-old Carter found herself drawn to the sight.

“I was mesmerized, watching this happen “» this lump of clay “» I remember being really affected by it.”

She had a similar experience when she was 16, while taking a summer-school art class. In the room next to hers, she noticed a young man working on clay at a potter’s wheel.

“He was a senior student — I think he had already graduated, but they let him come back and use the wheel. So I saw him there working and I thought, oh my gosh, there it is again! And so I asked, and the teacher let me go in and learn how to make pots.”

Whatever caused Carter’s early attraction to pottery, it was clearly the real thing, for today she is a nationally recognized artist and holds the Clarece Harp Lyles Endowed Professorship in Ceramic Arts at Louisiana Tech.

In a recent honor, she has been featured in the 2012 publication, “The Best of 500 Ceramics,” a hardcover book from Lark Crafts Publishing in New York. On page 33 is Carter’s selection along with a citation from Frank R. Martin, one of the book’s jurors: “The notion of sensual restraint comes to mind when looking at the silhouette of Carter’s porcelain vase. Sincere in her methodology, she has created a strong voluptuous form that’s subtly plastic, with suggestive references to the Song Dynasty.”

Born and raised in California, Carter has taught at Louisiana Tech for the past 14 years. She has been steadily garnering honors since graduating with a bachelor of fine arts from Kansas City Art Institute, then a master of fine arts from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. The list of her juried and invitational exhibitions runs on and on: Philadelphia, Seattle, New York, Minneapolis, Dallas. “» Her work is owned by museums and private collectors in New York, Pennsylvania and Arizona. And she is featured in an upcoming profile in the international journal, “Ceramics: Art and Perception.”