Welcome to Marc Hudson Design Studios

Fascination with clay stretches back in time more than 30,000 years to early man’s exploration of his environment. A lump of clay in the hands of a child could be kneaded into a plastic material, to take on just about any shape imagination can conceive. And when fire is added to the mix, near rock hardness and durability is imparted.  The first time one of our ancient ancestors scooped up a handful wet clay and squeezed it through her fingers, she manifested the first extruder. 

Clay vessels became a way of carrying or offering or trading foods, ideas, and artistry across cultures and through time.

My own fascination with clay began as a child in the family garden irrigation ditches and then in the museums of the American South West displaying Ancient Puebloan artifacts and chards. Here was a vessel someone, hundreds or thousands of years ago, had fashioned into a vessel or shape from wet paste clay, delving into her imagination for ideas and feelings and finally consigned it to fire, and transformed it, through local metamorphism into a durable pot. 

I, too, use clay to represent my interpretations of imagery, ideas and feelings, be it vessel, sculptural, or amorphous in nature. The malleable clay, the changing shape, the glaze materials, and high heat all conspire with imagination to express a snapshot into my creative process. 

The word Sabateau is a portmanteau I made up of the French words sabot (wooden shoe), bateau (boat), and eau (water). I needed a word to represent the detailed, model boats I make from discarded wooden shoes.

 When one of my children was three, she would not settle down enough to sleep, so I invented stories about "Laurel" who had a habit of tripping over most anything  (she always distracted!) and would find herself miniaturized to the size of a small field mouse! In this condition, Laurel had many great adventures with insects, lost islands, sorcerers, and sailed away in a Sabateau with a little woodland Seacorn!