Bobbi Stevens

Details – important ones – are floating around my mind as I think of Bobbi. Her dangly, sculptural earrings (at least once, she enhanced them with bright purple and pink blossoms at a party). The way she pushed up her big sunglasses when they slipped down her nose. Making gravy for a holiday dinner. Doubling up the reflective balls on the Christmas tree. The evolving gallery of grandchild photos and vacation adventures on the refrigerator door.

Bobbi’s whole home was a work of art. It was arranged. Artwork (and silverware and driftwood and each light fixture) was carefully selected and it stayed. Each piece was excellent. Plates were dark and earthy, coffee cups were white and brilliant. For her husband, she made a throne. To make it fit in with the ceramics, maybe, the piano was a terra cotta color. I’m including the yard in the composition, of course. Those slate stones leading from the driveway to the backyard: the highway for cousins arriving to use the pool. In recent years, sleeping outside in her special tent. Texture, color, light, space; cozy, spacious, organized, comfortable. A beautiful and good place.

I remember her way of taking charge. This quality had one of its best opportunities to shine at the time of Lisa and Pete’s wedding. After watching Bobbi orchestrate this production, my cousins confided that this was really Bobbi’s wedding, with Lisa and Pete cast in starring roles. It really was a beautiful day! Afterward, I think Bobbi laughed the hardest, though, at the fake wedding announcement we concocted around the dinner table. (One highlight, as I recall, was that the reception took place on the mound where the rabbit hutch had been.)

The artist in the family. What a delight it was to walk through the Arcade and find Bobbi on duty at the old Clay Gallery. The Art Fair was a more delightful destination because Bobbi was in it. I remember a year she sold a ton of pots and won some prizes. There was an extra glow (but not too much crowing) at the after-party that year. I’m so proud to claim a relationship to someone of such tremendous talent.

Beautiful artist’s hands. Her laugh. Provocative remarks to spark conversation. During my last visit with her in August, she told me that glazing was harder than working the clay. I wish I had asked her more questions.

Oh, Bobbi! I love you lots.

A toast to Bobbie! A fellow Virgo and a wonder woman with a zest for life, friends, family and art. To YOU!

To this day, my goal is to stack a kiln as well as Bobbie has. I am honored to have shared space, time, laughter and stacking kilns with her. Her strength, power and presence will be greatly missed and remembered with every story we recite about her… and she will live on.

Peace be with you,
Denise Kabisch

Bobbi was the first instructor I had at the Potters Guild. She became both my clay mentor and my friend and I loved her. Bobbi made all of us feel that we had something important to convey with our clay work. She was able to encourage me to grow with both praise and useful criticism. Bobbi had a wonderful full-body hug that we shared at every meeting; she would say, "Where have you been? How is your daughter?" and such, with such active listening. I adored her laugh. Her ceramic work always made me look again and again. She will be sorely missed and live on in her work and the work of her students.

I miss my Aunt Bobbi. She and my Uncle Brad have always been an important part of my life. I feel like the planet has been knocked a little off of its orbit. At the same time, Bobbi left so many powerful memories and her art still gives her spirit a physical presence. Of course, there are the family archival photographs....

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hathsomephotos/sets/72157603348365730/detail/

Bobbie's enthusiasms, her remarkable zest for all aspects of life, remain an inspiration for the many friends she has left behind.

I knew Bobbi from being one of several couples who shared a wonderful vacation home on Drummond Island for week-long soujourns for several years. What a fiercely vibrant person she was! What a talented artist! The Ann Arbor arts community will be truly diminished by her passing.

What a powerful force and capable artist! I'm so grateful to have had the priveledge of knowing Bobbi. The many things I've learned from her are now part of my daily life in the studio but the one thing that stands out above all else is her appreciation and acknowledgement of beauty, in nature,in art and in the process of making art, in life.
Thank you Bobbi for everything and yes, I'll work hard for the both of us.
Fondly,
Deb Saravolatz

What I learned from Bobbi:

How to stack a kiln at the Potters Guild
How to be generous with your knowledge and gifts
How to work hard at your art
How to confidently state your opinion
How to admit that your opinion might be wrong.
How to remember the word for blue in Polish because it is so similar to the word for sky, and I still remember both!

Bobbi, you are my guild mom, my own mother’s age, my polish potters guild friend. We shared not only a love of art, but a love of theater and dancing - I’ll never forget dancing with you at the Detroit Institute of Arts last fall. I learned so much from you, and I only wish I would have told you myself, but I could never think of a way. I hope that I have also learned from you not to wait to tell the people in my life what they mean to me.

Thank you for all the ways you have helped me grow as an artist, a guild member, and a person. You’ll always be with me but I’ll miss you anyway. Say hello to the kiln goddesses for me. Love, Jeri

I first met Bobbi when I began taking classes at the Potters Guild in the late 1980's. She became a teacher of mine at one point and later when I became a member at the guild, a mentor of sorts, especially about the Art Fair. There are times that we talked about real things and other times when we talked BS or had conflict. I will always remember and respect the fact that Bobbi worked as hard or harder than anyone in the guild, and she leaves a big set of shoes to fill. Her clay work is like she was - powerful and making a statement I will miss her. Nancy Grob

As a member of the Potters Guild and the Clay Gallery, I can truely say Bobbi was a big influence on my artistic development.
I will never forget her incredible energy, creativity and positiv outlook on life. She will be missed greatly,
with my deepest sympathy
Inge Merlin