We recently connected with Diane Delaney and have shared our conversation below.

Diane, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Do you have a hero? What have you learned from them?

When I first met Warren Iliff, he was the Director of the Portland Zoo and President of the American Association of Zoo Keepers. I presented an idea to him to expand public knowledge and support for international environmental issues. The Portland Zoo had started a breeding program for the endangered Humboldt Penguin and I proposed to organize a travel program to link a Peruvian Nongovernmental Organization working to save the penguin’s habitat with interested zoo members. A portion of travel costs would be donated to that NGO during the trip. Warren like the idea and I organized and led four trips to Peru and the Galapagos Island and established a bond to reintroduce the penguin to its original habitat. Warren was a great inspiration to me because of his reliance on his imagination. He was always full of ideas. One day he confided, “they think I’ve run my course, but they don’t realize how many new ideas I have. My imagination is my most prized possession.” I never forgot his comment and reflect on it frequently. I too have an active imagination, and it keeps me going.

Diane, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a resident artist and instructor at Friendship Village Ceramic Studio in Tempe, Arizona. My husband, Don Lesh, and I were living in Florida’s Big Bend when we decided to downsize and move into a continuing care retirement community. Our 3-year search for one that offered professional art studios, including clay, have a lap pool, and quality food and beverage services ended in 2011 when we visited Friendship Village. We had both traveled extensively and lived outside the U.S., Don in Russia and Europe and me in Iran and Venezuela. I had art in college and studied at the Oregon College of Arts and Crafts. My mother was an acrylic painter and I always sketched, did oil painting and photography, but never had the time or lifestyle, to work in ceramics. So, now was my chance! I had the incredible Jesse Armstrong as my instructor at the Mesa Arts Center and found my subject inspiration in the beauty and bounty of Arizona’s prime Sky Island, the Chiricahua Mountains and Cave Creek Canyon. I had camped there in 1978 and remembered it as one of the most beautiful places I had ever visited…..and it still is. We rented houses there for months on end to encounter all seasons. I traveled with my clay so that I could sculpt what I was seeing and photographing. That connection is so important to me. While I am working on a piece I am transported back to where I first saw my subject, what it was doing, and how I felt, as my sculpting slowly brings it to life. It could be the Green Heron in the reeds, the Black-tailed Rattlesnake that let me get close as it crossed the road, the resplendent Trogon feeding young in the nest, the harlequin patterned Montezuma Quail sitting on the side of the road, or the Puma watching me while crossing the road. I could go on and on. But this is why I love sculpting. A little bit of me and the subject are in each piece. And people who buy my art in galleries or at sales, say the same thing, “it just speaks to me.” And that makes me very happy.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

My first husband, Bill Phillips, and I moved to Venezuela just as NASA put a man on the moon. I felt a million miles away from Iran. OMG…Caracas, what a beautiful city. So tropical, great climate, and nature – from cloud forests and table-topped mountains, and barrier reefs and white-water rapids, to the Andes and Paramo—Venezuela had it all. So, when after a few months, Bill said he was going back to the states, I decided to stay. I was still that little girl from Florida who played in streams looking for critters, or caught butterflies to sketch, or climbed trees to build houses or eat mulberries. I wanted to explore Venezuela, to climb the Tepuys, to scuba dive and snorkel, to sleep in hammocks, to watch monkeys, macaws, toucans, giant anteaters, and jaguars. Travel and adventure were waiting, and I said “YES!” After 10 years of doing it all, I left Venezuela on a one-year jeep safari throughout all of South America.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Nature is my touchstone and the basis of what I sculpt. I hate living on the brink of a Climate Crisis. I organized the first of 9 national conferences — GlobeScope Assemblies – from 1985-1991 to focus attention on climate change and sustainable development. Over the years we had speakers such as Vice President Al Gore, President Carter, Senators John Kerry and John Heinz, Carl Sagan, and Ted Turner. Since then the needle has slowly moved, but we are far from where we need to be. So, to stop being too depressed, I get out in nature and uncover more to sculpt.

Contact Info:

• Website: Website: dianedelaneyclaynature.com
• Instagram: Instagram: dianedelaneyclaynature
• Facebook: Facebook: dianedelaneyclaynature
• Linkedin: Linkedin: linktr.ee/dianedelaneyclaynature
• Other: Pinterest: dianedelaneyclaynature
  www.patagoniatradingpost.com
  www.chiricahuagallery.net
  www.femaleartgallery.com

Image Credits

Diane Delaney