Current events have been unexpected but surprisingly kind to potter Charles Nalle. It has given him more time for introspection and preparation. And, for an artist whose schedule is generally packed with outdoor art shows, time is a rare commodity.
A robust and busy 71-year-old artist who lives in Melbourne Beach and likes to surf, Nalle had looked forward to participating in this year’s interrupted Under the Oaks Fine Arts and Craft Show at Riverside Park.
The Friday of what would have been a three-day show, he nearly sold out his popular, vibrant work, which Carla Funk, Florida Tech’s director of institution museums, has called “modern, fresh, unique and soulfully crafted.”
But, the show did not go on; it was forced to close down at the end of that day. It was just one of many outdoor art shows canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, joining a cascade of others that ultimately put the brakes on Nalle’s annual plans to participate in the art show circuit’s lucrative spring and summer months.
Instead, he is now playing around with the “Mask” series he began three years ago, and making plans to ramp up production for shows that he hopes will start up again in November. He has even toyed with the idea of getting a website up. Nalle hasn’t needed one before, because he can barely keep up with the demand for his work.
Indeed, Florida’s stay-at-home order has freed up his time.
“I worked so hard in the spring to get ready for so many shows; it’s like running a marathon,” he says. “It takes a toll. I had to decompress for a couple of weeks.”
Nalle, who prefers working by himself in his large, industrial studio, says the time off has given him a chance to consider how his work has evolved, from deeply artistic, to commercially successful and approachable and now, perhaps, back to an artistic center that started a successful career.
“It’s made me rethink what I’m doing,” he says. “This affords me an opportunity to work on pieces that are more show pieces and less oriented toward production. More one-of-a-kind.”
Nalle has a personal history and artistic background that runs ocean to ocean. Born on the Upper West Side of New York City, he grew up in Pasadena, Calif. He studied art history at the University of Delaware, and afterward built his first pottery studio in Cherry Hill, Md., where he worked until suffering a life-threatening injury.
He was by himself, carrying storm windows down into the basement of his old farmhouse, when the whole stairwell collapsed. The glass from a window he was holding cut his wrist and partly severed arteries and tendons. He was 23 years old and just starting what would become a long, successful career as an artist.
“There’s a lot of things go through your mind,” he says. “First of all, you’re in shock. I wasn’t aware of the severity of the accident.”
An hour went by before a friend came along.
“She had ridden a bike 7 miles to the farm, which was next to a cornfield,” he says. “I’m screaming her name and she found me.”
After the neurosurgeon explained how serious the injury was, Nalle says he came to the realization that he could either move forward, or be a slacker and wallow in misery.
“I chose to go forward and make the best of it,” says Nalle, who was eventually able to move forward after a year of physical rehabilitation for the severed nerve.
He returned to school and got an MFA in ceramics from Louisiana State University. Later, he ran the ceramics studio for the renowned Art Institute of Chicago for a couple of years.
Nalle’s work got him into high-end shows such as the American Porcelain Artists show at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., and the American Craft Museum in Manhattan.
By 1980, his business, Nalle Ceramics, showed at big trade shows in Atlantic City, N.J., at the Javits Center in New York City, and at the American Craft Council in Baltimore. His work also appeared in numerous books and magazines in the 1980s and ’90s.
An article he wrote for Ceramic Industry Magazine, questioning the relationship among design and mass production was, he says, “a seminal moment and a career-changer.”
“My work was controversial, because it was production work made in a factory, but so artistic it was getting into good shows,” he explains.
His sails filled with acclaim, he moved to downtown Wilmington, Del., where he bought property by an Amtrak train station and began making high quality neo-deco work, usually found only in high-end galleries or museums.
“My price points were great and I really started killing it, selling a ton. My revenues from the late ’80s to 2000 really took off. Then, my property was condemned by the state.”
Even that ended up being a blessing. He made tax-free money selling the condemned property, which he used to purchase property in Melbourne Beach, an area near the family of his life partner, acclaimed glass artist Xochitl Ross.
The next year, in 2000, he bought a 3,000-square-foot, 1922 warehouse in downtown Melbourne. The airy space is divided into a bright showroom and a large working studio. Rafters support high ceilings and abundant light floods through large windows, where work tables, a potters wheel, molds, a kiln and more stand at the ready to work clumps of clay into neo-cubist, organic-shaped vases, pitchers, cups, bowls, objet d’art, wild masks and more.
“I like the structure, the height of the ceilings, the openness of the space,” he says. “I’m drawn to a warehouse and that kind of space. I can do what I want there. I don’t have neighbors, per se,” says Nalle.
“I feel very strongly as an artist that you need to own your own space. Your space in many ways is your career. Your work won’t get disrupted. Your landlord can’t raise your rent. You can’t get kicked out.”
Not having to worry about rent is especially important now, at a time where everyone has to stay at home, maintain distances and basically stay away from others.
So instead of worrying, Nalle will be working; experimenting with new forms while making plenty of pieces to satisfy expected demand at autumn art shows and his giant holiday show in December, which is in his studio and open to the public.
“I’ll be throwing pieces so I won’t be crashing into it at the last minute. I’ll be able to build up a stock of pieces that sell pretty well,” says Nalle, adding, “I’m just about bored enough to do it.”