By LOIS KINDLE
Martha Klos had a good run at the Florida State Fair this year. Competing in the Porcelain Painting category, the Sun City Center resident walked away with 14 awards, including Best of Show, nine 1st-place ribbons and four 2nd-Place ribbons.
After 45 years of painting with oils and teaching the art to others, the former hairdresser entered the world of china painting in 2009. She began competing two years later and has since won 10 Best of Show awards. She said she’s lost count of all the others but estimates the number is easily more than 50.
These Martha Klos entries won ribbons at the 2022 Florida State Fair in Tampa
Klos meets with other members of the Sun City Center China Painting Club three days a week in the Community Association Arts & Crafts Building. Otherwise, she works on her creations at home in a large studio on her enclosed lanai.
Each product she makes begins as an unglazed piece of ceramic bisque or tile, which she purchases from a company in Maryland. She draws a scene, object or design on it, then paints and fires the piece in layers at high temperatures inside one of three different-size kilns in her garage.
Martha Klos holds a large vase she’s working on in her home studio in Sun City Center. An object like this requires many layers of painting and firings at high temperatures and can take up to a month to finish.
Klos loves the process of creating something new.
“I can hardly wait to see the result, she said. “To be a china painter, you must have an eye for detail and a lot of patience, because you paint and fire in layers until you have a finished (product). Sometimes I can do one in a week. A large piece can take up to a month.”
Klos’ home is filled with room after room of porcelain paintings, dishes, tea cups, lamps, pitchers, flat tiles and more.
“I can paint anything I see,” she said. “I go into a world of my own.”
Klos bristles at how the intricate work she does isn’t seen as a form of art.
“In some circles, porcelain painting is considered a craft rather than art,” she said, noting other clubs in Sun City Center don’t recognize it as such.”
The United States Congress did so in January 1980 by designating July as “National Porcelain Art Month,” and President Jimmy Carter asked the American people to observe it “with appropriate ceremonies and activities.”
Congress’ joint resolution designated china painting as a fine art, stating “painting on porcelain requires great skill, intensive training, and great artistic ability and produces works of beauty.”
The declaration also noted that “throughout history, the art of porcelain painting has provided a medium for the preservation of history and culture, and further, has been recognized as a fine art by all of the world’s great civilizations.”
Other winners
This is Martha Klos’ studio in Sun City Center, where she works on her porcelain pieces and keeps her supplies of paint, ceramic bisque and tile.
Martha Klos won Best of Show at a past Florida State for this porcelain painting, which hangs in her Sun City Center home.
Six additional Sun City Center China Painting Club members were recognized at the recent Florida State Fair:
• Diana Young: three 1st-place ribbons, a 2nd-place ribbon and two 3rd-place ribbons.
• Janet Singer, a 1st-place ribbon, three 2nd-place ribbons and a 3rd-place ribbon.
• Marian Stephens, a 1st-place ribbon, two 2nd-place ribbons and a 3rd-place ribbon.
• Joan Fawcett: a 3rd-place ribbon and an honorable mention.
• Dominic Ingo: a 3rd-place ribbon.
• Dottie Fladung, an honorable mention.
All of these ceramic bisque objects will one day become fine pieces of colorful porcelain, once Martha Klos paints them in layers and fires them in a kiln. She owns three different-size kilns in her garage.
LOIS KINDLE PHOTOS
China painter Martha Klos, 86, draws on a circular piece of bisque that will eventually become a beautiful piece of porcelain art. The Sun City resident won 14 ribbons, including Best of Show, at the Florida State Fair.
The SCC China Painting Club meets at 1 p.m. each Thursday of the month from September through May. Its clubroom is open 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays in the Arts and Crafts Building, 901 Cherry Hills Drive.
For more information, call (813) 633-4670 or email info@suncitycenter.org/.
