Sonoma artist’s ‘whimsical’ clay creations celebrate everyday life
There are times when Cynthia Hipkiss can’t help herself. Her wild sense of humor takes over and her talents instinctively go into gear, with the ceramicist turning slabs of clay into quirky and comical works of art.
Known for her humorous figures of plump women and portly men, the award-winning Sonoma Valley artist highlights celebrities and everyday people alike, eliciting laughter at art shows and sales wherever she goes.
Sometimes, her humor is a bit dark, but never mean-spirited or entirely X-rated. Although she usually shies away from politics, she couldn’t resist a few jabs at President Donald Trump when he was in office.
One piece, titled “On Loan from the Guggenheim,” shows Trump seated on a golden toilet, pants down, a hefty In-N-Out cheeseburger in hand and McDonald’s French fries tucked into his coat pocket. It’s a spoof of his reported request to borrow a Vincent van Gogh painting from the Guggenheim Museum for the Trumps’ living quarters in the White House; the museum rejected the inquiry but offered an 18-karat gold toilet titled “America.”
Hipkiss, 72, couldn’t overlook the opportunity to turn Trump into a piece of work. The large-scale sculpture features gold luster, at a cost of $450 for the authentic-looking gilded toilet.
She and her husband of 53 years, retired middle-school teacher Karl Hipkiss, often team up for inspiration. “He helps me a lot with the ideas,” she said. “We bounce things back and forth.”
But, notes her husband, “Sometimes she asks me what I think, but it doesn’t matter.” He’s approving anyway, and is her No. 1 fan. The couple have four children and three grandchildren.
Former presidents aside, Cynthia Hipkiss has clay creations of newsmakers from all walks of life. There’s Michael Jackson holding a blanket over the head of his son, Blanket; Julia Child with a plucked, headless turkey in her hands; and everyone from famed televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker to Trump’s senior counselor Kellyanne Conway and notorious sex offender Harvey Weinstein.
Local notables are included, too. There’s horticulturist Luther Burbank, Sonoma’s founder Gen. Mariano Vallejo and a “World’s Ugliest Dog” contestant.
In some 50 years working with clay, Hipkiss figures she’s made thousands of the eclectic pieces, “and I love doing it,” she said. Chefs, with aprons circling their big bellies, are top sellers. The ever-popular pieces often include trays of food hoisted overhead. “I’ve done tons of chefs,” she said. “I’ve made chefs that look like people’s husbands or who look like people’s wives and dogs.”
She hasn’t yet sculpted Santa Rosa chef and Food Network star Guy Fieri but hopes to do so before too long. She’s been invited to participate in an exhibit with a chef theme at the Archival Gallery in Sacramento in August — and just may include a Fieri look-alike.
Hipkiss is researching chefs, but not exactly their specialties. So far she’s discovered a few real-life chefs who “misjudged” their ingredients: One chef and his assistant died after sampling their dish made from death cap mushrooms; another perished after decapitating a spitting cobra for an entree, only to have the chopped-off head bite him when he reached to throw it away.
Hipkiss admits a curiosity for oddities, and once was part of an exhibit themed “Macabre.”
A trio of pieces titled “Sea Anemone” features a broadly smiling woman standing atop a red sea anemone; the next with outstretched arms and a distressed face as she’s being consumed; the final work shows the expanded sea anemone with the woman nowhere to be found. Another series shows three different women shaped like fortune cookies, each grimacing and uttering words of despair like, “Oh, sh--.” Explains Hipkiss: “They got stuck in a fortune cookie machine.”
Insects find a way into Hipkiss’ works. One showcases the vintage American insect guidebook, “Insects,” with a bright yellow cover and — yes — oversized insects coming from its pages, a dung beetle, bedbug, ant and pubic louse among them. Other bugs appear on clothing designs.
Mostly, though, her pieces are humorous, hand-painted in bright colors and celebrating everyday life. Some consider her works “whimsical,” Hipkiss said, alluding to their playful nature. One scene called “Hen House” features four women in various stages of nudity engaged in a game of strip poker, along with “a whole slew of bras and panties.” Others showcase women with big smiles holding up plates of baked goods; friends gathered for tea; a woman in a floral dress proudly holding two cats, while another walks her spotted dog.
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