CCA News
Alumni Spotlight: Ceramicist Diana Fayt
Posted on Thursday, February 11, 2010, by Sarah Owens
CCA alumna and ceramicist Diana Fayt (Ceramics 1992) works out of a sunny studio in San Francisco's Bayview / Hunters Point district. Born in Sunnyvale, California, to a Hungarian family of craftspeople and circus performers, Diana is the first person in her family to attend college.
Always open to new opportunities, her path to success has been winding and filled with good friends and fortune.
Growing up Diana had no intention of becoming an artist. During her senior year in high school, she moved to her father’s home in Santa Cruz. After she graduated, she took a few general-education courses at Cabrillo College. Her father suggested she spend time in Hungary to get closer to her family. (Her parents immigrated to the United States before she was born, and many family members remain there.)
So at 19 Diana enthusiastically went to Hungary, where she spent a year in Budapest living with her cousin, who after seeing drawings Diana made for her son, encouraged Diana to take up art.
After her stint in Hungary, Diana moved back to the Bay Area and, thanks to her cousin’s suggestion, enrolled in a photography course—her first foray into formal art instruction. At the time Diana was making a living as an au pair for a girl named Molly, who incidentally became a star in her own right (she is a writer for the blog The Purl Bee). It was Molly’s mother, Josie Schnick, a CCA alumna (Textiles 1972) who encouraged Diana to apply to the college.
Diana, at 24, was several years older than most of the other first-year students when she came to CCA. She also was supporting herself financially. Yet she paved her way academically, using tools such as the potter’s wheel at a time when the CCA Ceramics Program was largely sculptural (under the influence of iconic artist Viola Frey, then chair of the program). Diana’s first instructor was current faculty member Arthur Gonzalez, and she was one of his first students.
While at CCA Diana experimented with her technique and style, experimenting with patterns similar to Majolica pottery and entertaining figurative sculpture. She also earned a one-year internship at the Richmond Art Center, a nonprofit arts organization that focuses on community engagement in the arts.
After Diana earned her bachelor of fine arts, she pursued teaching. It was roughly a year later that she started to play with her signature technique—painting, drawing, and carving clay designs. It was then her focus shifted from teaching to solely art making. She continued to support herself financially, as she been for years, working as a waitress. In fact, Diana waitressed a total of 20 years, more than half of which was at the highly regarded Firefly restaurant in San Francisco.
Diana’s career took off in the late 1990s after she was approached by Synergy Design to create a line of tableware. The line was produced in Hungary from 1999–2002, which afforded Diana more opportunities to revisit her family. International interest increased in Diana’s work during this period: two solo shows in Japan in 2002–3; and her work was featured in several Japanese publications.
In 2005 Diana started one of the first ceramics-focused blogs, One Black Bird, which exposed her work to even more people, eventually allowing her to support herself solely from her craft.
Diana works tirelessly with her art business, yet feels fortunate for her success: “Clay can be like a bad boyfriend,” Diana mentioned. “It always stays interesting, and I keep coming back to it.”
Currently Diana is preparing for an upcoming exhibition that opens Saturday, February 13, at Modern Relics gallery in San Francisco, titled “Carbon and Clay”, which also features jewelry artist Alix Bluh.
Upcoming Events
Other upcoming shows include two exhibitions during the 2010 NCECA (National Council on Education for the Ceramics Arts) conference in Philadelphia: A la cARTe, during which local restaurants will display her work as a part of the exhibition, which is curated by The Clay Studio; and La Mesa, an exhibition of table settings made by selected ceramicists from around the United States.
Diana also is returning to teaching. She will host workshops in Georgia, Colorado, New Hampshire, and in California at Heath Ceramics in Sausalito.
For more up-to-date information on Diana’s work and exhibitions, visit her page on Facebook or www.dianafayt.com or Etsy shop.