Hot Pottery: What Makes Artist Sandy Groves' Wheels Spin?

Intellectually stimulating, liberating, all-consuming; these are words that can be used to describe all types of various things. But for Laguna Beach artist Sandy Groves, they describe his feelings towards his life-long involvement with clay.

Groves has had a lifelong passion for ceramics and pottery, and it has brought him to his current studio in the canyon, which he moved into earlier this year in January. It's hard to miss the bright yellow sign out front that faces Laguna Canyon Road and reads SANDOG CLAYWORKS.

The studio is jam-packed with completed pieces of ceramic work, pieces that are in progress, and the materials that are needed to create said pieces. Bowls and plates and curiously-shaped projects sit up front. Different types of glazes and clay are placed on shelves all around, and a couple of impressive-sized kilns sit off to the side. It is easy to see that this is the work of a dedicated artist.

Groves, who is originally from New York, was involved in various types of arts from a very young age. Starting in the 7th grade, he tried his hands at things like photography and other crafts, but none of that sustained his interest for too long.

At 21, he moved to California and worked on his business degree at Cal State Fullerton. It was at this time that Groves first fell in love with ceramics. A friend of his was a potter, and during a visit, he watched his friend making pots. He was instantly drawn in and asked if he could try. His friend obliged and showed him the way.

“So that was all I did for the next four years,” Groves recalls.

During those years, he worked out of a studio he had in his home in Fullerton, and made his living selling his work, which he was good enough to do within half a year of first sitting down at the pottery wheel.

But after doing the math, Groves decided he needed to go back and finish his master’s degree in administration. He opted out of getting a job in the ceramics industry because he didn’t like any of the options that were available.

“Most of the people who were making a living [in ceramics] were in production pottery, which was just about working a lot, but I really enjoyed the creativity, the art side of it. I enjoyed the intellectual stimulus.”

His other choices were going into pottery manufacturing or teaching, which also didn’t interest him. So after getting his masters, he worked in finance and administration for the next 35 years—a period that included a stint from 1996 until 2001 as Laguna Beach's Deputy City Manager.

Throughout those decades, he stayed very involved with ceramics, which he worked on out of private and at times shared studios. He and his wife bought a house in Laguna Beach in the 1970s.

After retiring a decade ago, Groves began dedicating most of his time to his art. He worked out of studios in Santa Fe, New Mexico for a while, where he and his wife had a vacation home. But his wife’s work made it impractical to stay there for long periods of time, and they eventually left Santa Fe. He then rented his current studio in Laguna Beach, where he now spends about 4-5 hours per day.

To date, Groves has been involved in ceramics for 50 years and has produced thousands of pieces. He has sold most of what he has made, and has even exhibited his work in a few galleries and shows over the years in Southern California, Washington D.C and Santa Fe, but that has never been a big focus for him. He’s always been more interested in the creation side.

“The opportunity to express myself is probably the thing that’s the most interesting and [keeps me] preoccupied," explains Groves. "When I think about clay, I think about my own philosophical inclinations [and through] texture and gesture and I try to somehow translate that part of myself into a finished ceramic piece."

He expresses himself, in part, through the notion of yin and yang, which he is fascinated by. He puts that in his work by juxtaposing different types of surfaces—rough and “dirty” glaze, next to smooth and shiny surfaces within the same piece.

He also describes his work as very painterly, referring to the glaze as his paint and clay as his canvas. This part of his work is very in-the-moment.

“You have the instantaneous, spontaneous flow of the brush over the canvas. It’s not designed, it’s an instance of motion that occurred” Groves says, while describing one of his finished pieces. “It either works or doesn’t work. It’s either there, or not there.”

Groves also likes to incorporate symbols in his work, but in his own way.

“I’m not so much concerned with the meaning of the symbols, as I am with putting symbols that carry heavy contextual meaning in different environments, in different contexts, so they become something other than what they traditionally are seen to be,” he says, using the cross as an example.

Another thing that can be seen in many of his pieces is layering. He likes to add a three-dimensional feel to his work by using this technique.  

Although Groves’ work is complex, intricate and personal, the sentiment behind his interest with the craft is universal and easily understood:

“Working with clay is about the only thing that I’ve ever done in my life where I lose track of everything. I lose track of when to eat, I lose track of time, I get annoyed when I have to go to the bathroom. For some reason I can’t explain, it has an attraction and fascination that draws me into it. I like the aspect of totally going into myself and losing myself to my work.”

Sandog Clayworks is at 21022 Laguna Canyon Rd. For more information and to contact Sandy Groves, click up his website here.