Emerging Artist Builds a Colorful Career, Tile by Tile
In Poli Cecil’s world high atop the mountains of Topanga Canyon, color heals and the artist is doctor.
“I believe in color as therapy, and the initial blast that people get from looking at one of my pieces is definitely a healing blast,” said Cecil, who creates vivid ceramic tile artwork. “Just for that moment, when they see it and appreciate it--that’s what my work is there for.”
These days, the Cecil theory of art appreciation is drawing a stream of admirers to her home and studio in the Santa Monica Mountains. Collectors, friends and an occasional gallery representative make the pilgrimage up a sharply winding road to discover the latest work of this emerging artist.
What they find on Cecil’s hushed and tree-enshrouded property at the crest of Topanga Skyline Drive is a collection of tile mosaics, montages and other ceramic work vibrant enough to waken the senses.
A wonderland of ceramic art unfolds, beginning with the numerous eclectic numbered tiles that mark her street address, decorate her front walkway and carpet her doorstep like a welcome mat.
Inside the house, more than 20 large square, rectangular or circular pieces--one serving as a coffee table top--clutter the rooms. Out back, a swimming pool has been ornamented with Cecil’s tiles, colored glass and marble insets.
“If you’ve ever been up to her place, you’d see how she leads the life style of an artist,” said C. D. Chen, owner of Q Gallery in Santa Monica, who plans a show of Cecil’s work this summer. “She is totally immersed in her art. That’s one reason why I’m very much interested in Poli.”
At 46, Cecil, after previously dabbling in song-writing, solo music performances, embroidery and clothing design, turned what she called “doodles” into drawings and then into designs for ceramic tiles.
Now, four years later, she is on the threshold of gaining some recognition for developing a brand of functional and decorative tile work that resembles folk art in its unlettered charm, simplicity, use of bright colors and eccentricity.
“You can have very high-brow, pricey art, but Poli’s work is sincere, bordering on functional,” Chen said. “Our gallery focuses on emerging artists, and I’m drawn to Poli because she’s a very hard-working lady. Her drawings and color are quite good.”
Cecil’s tiles and larger collages feature designs ranging from the abstract--swirls of shapes suggesting aquatic life--to the representational--people, animals, mythical creatures such as centaurs, dragons or two-headed horses.
Perhaps the most compelling, once its story is told, is Cecil’s “Nukalene” series, depicting humankind as it evolves after nuclear war: plump, deformed, emotionally wounded, but somehow still joyful. These characters dance and frolic, some with radiated babies in their bellies and fluorescent halos overhead to confirm their plight.
“The series is tinged with tragedy,” Cecil explained. “But it’s also very tongue in cheek. Clearly I’m concerned about nuclear annihilation, but this is just my view. They are post-nuclear fantasy figures. It’s artistic license.”
The primitive Nukalenes recall the appeal of modern artist Keith Haring’s cookie-cutter figure drawings, which began as Manhattan subway graffiti and later were widely marketed on post cards, jewelry, T-shirts and other commercial items.
Other Cecil works call to mind the fluid lines and clean colors of Matisse’s cutouts. And Ruth Wallace Reed of Westwood, one of Cecil’s steady customers, said she sometimes sees in the designs the imagery of Mayan Indians or other cultures.
Cecil, however, says she is influenced by no one’s art in particular, and that her styles are diverse seems to support that.
Her inspiration is usually “what feels right,” such as creating a two-headed horse and, of course, color.
“Every time I go to the supply house and get a new color of glaze, I get inspired to do a new thing. I close my eyes and something comes to mind. There are no rules.”
First she draws a design and carves it into the still-moist clay. Once the piece is out of the kiln, Cecil applies glaze with an eyedropper in a painstaking self-taught process that she says takes up to 25 to 30 hours per piece. Then the work goes back in the kiln, where its firing is carefully monitored lest the hues alter.
“Poli’s work comes from the heart, but her technical skills are superb,” said Reed, herself a landscape and portrait artist. “Most people who do it from the heart aren’t that skilled at it.”
Although Cecil’s work is admired among her circle of friends and patrons--Reed estimated that she has acquired dozens of the pieces and even asks Cecil for throw-aways--the artist has yet to hold a major formal exhibit.
In the past, people have learned of her art by word of mouth or by coming across table-top displays set up by invitation at annual Topanga Philharmonic Orchestra concerts in the canyon, including one held in April. In addition, community newspapers in Topanga and Westwood have featured her work in centerfold spreads.
The Q Gallery show, which is to be an informal, open-air patio exhibit, represents her professional debut into the Los Angeles art world.
For the time being, this jokingly self-described “reclusive aging hippie and former flower child” seems content with continuing to receive visitors at home to view her works, which she sells for roughly $100 a square foot. The larger, 48-inch-diameter circular tile works go for as much as $1,500.
“I try not to leave the canyon if I can avoid it,” Cecil said. “It’s completely peaceful here, like a vortex of energy that is so different from Los Angeles.
“People have been trying to talk me into showing for ages,” she said. “I’m really more interested in selling the pieces one by one than in sticking them on the wall and letting anyone buy them. I want to know it’s going somewhere it will be appreciated.”
Someday, however, she would like her creations to come to the attention of a broader audience, if only to spread whatever real or imagined effects the color wheel has on the psyche.
“I have no deep philosophical leanings coming out through my ceramics. I just want to heal with color, that’s all I want.”
