Exhibiting Member

Ashley Hills

Ashley Hills,

Williamswood, Nova Scotia

About the Artist Ashley Hills was born in New York and immigrated to Canada in 2006. She is a ceramic artist based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, sharing her home in the woods with her hubby, 7 dogs, 2 cats, and chickens.

She has been a full time self taught artist since 2014, with an existing background in painting and sculpture. In 2019 she transitioned into ceramics, learning from videos online, picking the brains of other ceramic artists, and applying skills from other mediums to ceramics.

Ashley enjoys combining sculpture and illustration with function, but also feels that all art serves the function of adding depth to our life. Nature plays an integral part in inspiring all her pieces. Themes often include plants, animals, and other nature elements. Her preferred type of clay is porcelain due to it’s lovely workability, strength, and whiteness, being the best blank canvas for her many colors of glazes.

She’s taken a number of chemistry classes to facilitate a deeper understanding of the materials she works with, and to have the capacity to formulate her own glazes from scratch. This enables her to have more control over colors, durability, and textures.

She has sold her work online worldwide, vendored at a number of high end markets, and done commission work for years. She has TESOL certification, and has volunteered in a teaching capacity for decades. She has taught a number of classes out of her studio to make the art of ceramics more attainable for the general public to experience.

Her goal in art is to make someone feel emotion, whether it be from a memory, thinking of a friend or family member, or to find joy in the present.

Squeeze Snake Vase

2024

37 cm tall x 26 cm wide

10.5 lbs

Porcelain, coil buit and inlayed underglazes with glaze on top. Snake is hand sculpted, air brushed underglaze, hand glazed detailed with clear glaze on top.

NFS