It All Counts: A Morning with Dorothy Hughes

Monday, October 6, finds me sitting in a small apartment with a cup of hot tea, surrounded by ceramic pieces, mixed media paintings, and a large fiber hanging piece. Dorothy Hughes sits across the table from me, dressed in olive green. She lives in the loft above this showing space, and works in the studio below. This is only the third time I’ve met her, but she welcomed me warmly into her home for this interview experience.
“I was just totally addicted…It’s never not been there.” Dorothy and I start our hour and a half conversation by talking about her beginnings as an artist. Her parents were always supportive of her passion. As a child, she was always making art. She even attended Saturday school at the Fort Wayne Art School. After high school, she attended the University of Illinois and Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Having married and had children young, her options were limited school-wise, but she still got in to some of the best art departments available. But at that time, a lot of things had to be managed at once. She doesn’t resent it, though. “There’s not a single thing more important to me than my family.”
In college, she focused her work on ceramics, with fiber work in the background. She recalls the clay work from this time as very conservative- simply wheel-thrown ceramics. It wasn’t until she started teaching at the Art Institute and Evanston that brought her fiber work out of the background and into brighter focus. Fiber pieces were having a break through in the art world, unlike clay. She also started working in mixed media, using plaster and twigs to bring an essence of story to her work.
Nowadays, Dorothy is teaching ceramics classes in the Cultural Center in Chicago, a program called Artscape. Everyday she is working, whether in physically or speculatively. “You spend so much time preparing for work that it’s not separated from making art.” And she works a lot. Some of her large fiber pieces, the size of an average wall, can take months of work. She works in dozens of clay pieces at a time to fill her kiln.
Working so much, you would expect to get burnt out, run out of ideas. I know I’ve hit that block many times myself. But as Dorothy says, “You constantly need to do things that stimulate you.” Every other year for 12 years, she has been going to the International Design Conference in order to be in the center of activity, to gain renewal. This past summer, she went to Italy to take a painting class, which is something she does not practice regularly.
But she said that getting out of her comfort zone like that makes a huge difference. If you get stuck in a rut, you need to involve yourself in a new creative situation to nudge you out of your normal work. “You are profoundly influenced by having this opportunity to be exposed to different things.” You have to take chances, even if the money comes out of your own pocket. If you don’t, you’ll get stagnate.
She also involves herself in things that are not art. Her and her friends started a book club ten years ago that is still thriving. “The library is my single favorite place to go.” She also claims to be a movie addict. She tries to balance the concrete of Milwaukee Avenue with natural green spaces like parks. But for her, “art life and everyday life work together.” She takes what she sees in nature and works it into her art. I can see the influence looking around me. The ceramic bowls and vases are very organic.
This integration of art and daily life is very important to Dorothy. “Everyday, all of us are around people that are very much not involved in the creative world. And I feel like something is missing in their lives.” In her classes, she has students who are not artists as a profession. “I can see that it’s such a balance to their other world.” She is very grateful that art has always been there for her as a means of expression.
She also appreciates the need for community in and outside the studio. “You need to have people feeding into your life…we all affect each other.” You have to get out and have a social life, a family. Besides, you never know the connections you might make! For Dorothy, a couple visits from a writer in the 70s became a small article in a newspaper, which spurred her career to new heights. Now she gets commissions from businesses like Shure (“That really was a thrill!”) and Household International. She has a piece in the Art Institute’s permanent collection.
If there was one recurrent theme in our conversation, it was this: It all counts. “All the different aspects, they all matter.” Especially good writing. A well written article, like the one previously mentioned, can make all the difference. But you have to make your own opportunities, and take what comes up, no matter the risk.
My favorite thing she said was this: “Everything gives you something, but some things give you so much more.” I had asked her about having a back-up plan if her career as an artist didn’t take off. She never really had a Plan B, but she supplemented her income by working in an accounting firm and a hospital. And while they didn’t give her experience in the arts, they still had something to offer- more than just a paycheck.
And I think that is something we all need to understand, artists and non-artists alike. It ALL counts. No matter what you are doing, you can learn something great from it. It all counts.