Helping Hands

South Brunswick resident Abby Hoffman uses handmade art to give back to a world in need.

By: Megan Sullivan
   Abby Hoffman first sank her hands into clay more than 30 years ago and discovered an energetic, tactile and responsive art form. Since then, her hands haven’t stopped creating.
   While Ms. Hoffman went on to work in the public health field after graduating from the University of North Carolina with human development and learning degrees, she continued making pottery as a hobby and took classes wherever she could find them.
   Soon after the death of her mother in 1993, however, Ms. Hoffman decided it was time to shift gears. "I looked at her life and said, ‘Wow, there was some stuff she really wanted to do — maybe I should be doing something different,’" she recalls.
   Ms. Hoffman decided to leave her job and instead made time for her three main passions: gardening, cooking and pottery. Had she not made this departure, the South Brunswick resident might never have discovered her true love — tile making.
   After taking her first workshop at the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works in Doylestown, Pa., Ms. Hoffman was hooked. She went on to study tile making at the Art School of the Aegean in Samos, Greece, Parsons School of Design in New York City and the Mosaic School of Luciana Notturni in Ravenna, Italy. She also took workshops and programs through the Tile Heritage Foundation.
   "I think I just liked the fact that there was pattern in tile and also never really knowing what else could be done with it," Ms. Hoffman says. "Once you go from the three-dimensional to tile making, most people don’t go back. It’s very alluring."
   The Gallery at Chapin will showcase Ms. Hoffman’s handmade ceramic tile and ornaments through Oct. 27. At her studio, Sacred Tile, Ms. Hoffman creates pieces for the home and office, installation work, custom tables and wall hangings. The show, Waking the Heart, features works inspired by ethnic, native and religious spiritual traditions, sacred geometry, ancient patterns and nature.
   "I look at things I’ve been working on as tools for change," she says. "I’ve been doing a lot of things with yantras, which are the sacred geometry of the yoga and Hindu beliefs, and a lot of things with Buddhist themes. Primarily, because I think there’s such great geometry, but also because I think the messages are so good."
   She points to a piece on which she carved the Prajnaparamita mantra, which translates to: "Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone utterly beyond, enlightenment hail." "It’s sort of talking about a destination, but also a way that we live our lives," Ms. Hoffman says. "Somewhere I think there’s a kind of balance between stillness and action, that has to do more recently with meditation for me, but also with doing things for the world, making sure that we don’t just sit back and let the world go — it needs our help.
   "Without being too instructive myself, I feel like I just have to get out there and walk and make that balance between the two."
   Ms. Hoffman uses her hands to give back to the world by donating 10 percent of the sale price after expenses to nonprofit service organizations benefiting humanity, animals and the environment.
   Aside from giving back through her art, Ms. Hoffman also is dedicated to her work at Elijah’s Promise, a soup kitchen in New Brunswick. Soon after beginning her volunteer work in 1999, employees asked her to teach cooking classes at their culinary school, Promise Jobs. The school teaches disadvantaged adults and helps them prepare for entry-level jobs in the food service industry.
   Teaching prompted Ms. Hoffman to further her own schooling, and in 2003 she attended the Institute of Culinary Education in New York. Ms. Hoffman’s specialty is vegetarian and whole foods cooking, and she supports eating locally and making sure the environment is protected. "This is reflected in my most recent work," she says. "I really feel that food is a social justice issue and that people shouldn’t deserve good food or be benefited with good food just because they’ve got wealth, that it should be accessible to everybody."
   In addition to addressing social justice issues, and applying Hindu and Buddhist themes in her pieces, Ms. Hoffman also has made Native American works using micaceous clay from sacred Native American land (by permission) and fossil works with shells, stones and bone imprints.
   "Somebody else may look at (the exhibit) and say, ‘God she’s all over the map,’" Ms. Hoffman says, "but this is how my mind works. If it’s a good pattern, if it’s good imagery, I like to work with it."
Waking the Heart will be on view at the Gallery at Chapin, 4101 Princeton Pike, Lawrence, through Oct. 27. The showcase of works by Abby Hoffman can be viewed during Chapin School hours. For information, call (609) 924-7206. Abby Hoffman on the Web: www.sacredtile.com