Traudi Thornton
(April 4, 1940- March 30, 2023)
Master Ceramicist
Traudi was born in Czechoslovakia in 1940. She first studied music at Creighton University before studying ceramics with Henry Soreco at Creighton, the University of Nebraska at Omaha and raku in a workshop with Paul Soldner at the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 1972. She returned to Germany and joined a cooperative art community in which she lived and worked on ceramics.
Love precipitated her move to Wilmington in 1983. She once again built a ceramic studio and began teaching ceramics at the Community Art Center where she influenced many budding ceramists.
Traudi said, “Working with clay validates my existence. During the plastic state, the relationship is that of master and a much beloved pet. I tell the clay to stay and push it, but often I have to listen. We have a rhythm. Clay needs heat to be transferred to a hard material. After the first fire everything turns from a state of grey to pink, and a slight estrangement takes place because they now look different than what they did before. Glazes also look pink or white or grey before they are fired. I imagine now how the optics will look in their final state, and after making choices the second fire takes over. Total surrender is demanded by heat and flame. After the firing is completed, the cooling period leaves my mood fluctuating between doubt and hope. And, then only after removing the pieces from the kiln, can I say they belong to me.”
Traudi showed and sold her work through Art in Bloom Gallery beginning in 2015. She is survived by brother, Walt Bayer and his wife Tina, nephew Jurgen Wilde and the family she chose and loved here in Wilmington.
