Debbie Flanagan is a local Arizona artist, and this is the one collection in our artist department that is not jewelry at all. It is pottery: hand-coiled, hand-painted clay animals, made one at a time.
Coil building is the slow way to make a pot. Instead of throwing the clay on a wheel, the artist rolls it into ropes and stacks them, welding each coil to the one below and working the wall smooth by hand as it rises. It is how pottery has been made in the Southwest for a very long time, and it leaves a piece with a slightly irregular, handled quality that a wheel cannot fake. Every one of these is finished and painted by hand, so no two come out identical even where the subject repeats.
Her subject is animals, mostly Southwestern and mostly with a sense of humour about them. Javelinas are the signature and there are several here in different sizes, from small desk-sized pieces up to large ones. Beyond the javelinas she makes dogs of various breeds, cats, sheep, horses and turtles, some of them wearing cowboy hats, and a set of Christmas cats. There is also an eleven-piece nativity set, all coiled and painted by hand.
These sit at the friendliest prices anywhere in the store, which makes them the easiest thing here to buy as a gift or to start collecting. People tend to buy one javelina and come back for another.
Flanagan works locally and everything is one of a kind, so what is on the page is what exists. Come and pick yours in person at our Old Town Scottsdale showroom, or see more of our wall art and decor and story tellers.