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I have been blessed with a good life. And I thank my dear
Lord daily for it. I have a wonderful
family and a husband that has been supportive of me as I have gone through this
journey of discovering myself. I have the privilege of being able to go to my
studio everyday where I can bring the creatures of my imagination to life. My
passion is clay … or rather sculpting with clay is my passion. I think I knew
this when I first discovered clay when I was 5 years old, while playing outside
of a family lakeside cottage. But I didn’t start with clay. As with most artists
it has been a transformation of going through various arts and crafts to
discover that passion.
 My background is in Fashion Design. I attended school in Atlanta,
Georgia. After 1 year I
dropped out and realized I didn’t really belong in the Fashion Design
environment. I loved drawing and designing the fashions, I just didn’t like
assembling them. I quit school and went back home to Goldsboro,
NC and got married to my high school sweetheart,
George.
We have two children, Jennifer and Jason. I spent most of those early
years raising them and I have to say - they are my greatest creation of all.
(In the Photo are from left to right, Greg Olson, our daughter's
husband, Jennifer Glisson Olson, George A Glisson, Me - Theresa
A Glisson, and Jason A Glisson.)
I developed an interest in decorating eggs after seeing
pictures in a craft magazine. I
decorated and created miniatures for eggs for about 15 years. I attended egg shows
and won several awards for my decorated eggs.
In 1988, a friend and fellow artist decided she wanted to
start sculpting portrait dolls of children and asked me if I would be
interested in going into business with her. This was when I was introduced to
sculpting. We learned all we could about sculpting, making molds and took doll
classes on how to make porcelain dolls, china painting and assembling them. During
this time, my friend became very sick with a reoccurring cancer. After she
passed away, I decided I was really more interested in sculpting on a smaller
scale than life size. My decision was partly because of the miniature dolls
that were available for dollhouses. They looked stiff and had no expression to
them. Their hands were like clubs. I sculpted my first doll in 1992 and in 1993
I had my first mold out on the market. It was named Addie Mae, after my
Grandmother. Today, I have 23 miniature molds and sell to customers all over
the world.
In 2004, I started taking pottery classes, along with my
husband George. This brought me back to my love of clay. I started throwing
pottery and creating one-of-a-kind sculptural and figurative pieces. I have had
very good response to my sculptures and pottery. I now sell through shows and
at galleries. Alot of my pottery have faces peering from behind leaves or
within a crack. I think this must be my signature, because whenever anyone sees
this they say “Theresa must have made that piece”.
I still love sculpting miniatures and have not given them
up. I will never get away from sculpting those tiny faces. I have plans for a
few more molds. All of my molds are named after family members and I still have
family members that don’t have a mold yet. I also have been working on a
pattern book for dresses in miniature scale. But I spend most of my time
throwing and sculpting one-of-a-kind figurative pieces, with an emphasis on fantasy
and sometimes the bizarre.
I would love to close this out with something really “artsy”
to say, but those phrases never made much sense to me anyway. So may I just
quote a line that a good friend of mine named Michelangelo said …
“Art is --- but a shadow of the divine perfection. “ This is what I strive for.
Now isn’t that beautiful
!
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