La Voz

Issue date: 4/21/08 Section: Features

Media Credit: Inna Razmakhova Student Artist Inna Razmakhova

Media Credit: Inna Razmakhova "The Ancient Fish", Razmakhova's latest and favorite sculpture, took her a month to finish.

Inna Razmakhova, a De Anza College student from Russia, has loved art since childhood. Her earliest inspiration was her father, who specialized in oil painting. As a child, she admired his talent and began to mimic his paintings.

In Russia, Razmakhova attended photography classes at art school. She intended to continue her education after moving to the United States with her husband eight years ago.

But with the difficulties of moving to a new country, not everything moved so smoothly.

When she arrived, she didn't have a work permit. With no job and a lot of free time on her hands, she began to study again. While taking photography classes at De Anza, she stumbled upon ceramics by accident. Since the photography lab and the ceramics studio are near each other, she recalls she passed the studio and said to herself, "I have to take to this class."

She didn't know anything about ceramics, but as Razmakhova puts it, she "fell in love." Since then, ceramics has become a huge part of her life. She attends classes at De Anza every quarter because she "can't quit it."

"Every day you can learn something new. You will never stop to learn with ceramics," she says, "I think I love sculpture more than doing regular dinnerware and cups. I just hated it. It's very routine work. You have to do everything the same."

Her latest and favorite work of art is a sculpture titled "The Ancient Fish." It took her a month to finish the piece. She used the technique of slip and color stain painting, used by other artists such as Peter VandenBerge. Since Razmakhova likes painting as well as ceramics, she tries to incorporate it into her work.

"I'm very glad I found [ceramics]. It's very time consuming, but it's very joyful," she says, "It's because of the very special instructors [Linda Mau and Bill Geisinger] and ceramic studio atmosphere, you will keep coming back."

Razmakhova also took graphic design classes at De Anza but finds "it is easier" for her to think in 3-D rather than in 2-D. She says, "I don't have problems with 3-D, I have so many ideas."

Impressionists and surrealists like Mikhail Vrubel, Monet, Van Gogh, Richard Shaw, Betty Woodman and VandenBerge inspire her. Other sources of inspiration for her are Japanese art and modern American art.

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