Professional artist Debra Broz gave a talk about her unique form of pottery Friday, discussing how she began her journey and she found her artist’s voice.

Broz’s specialty is making fusion sculptures by merging together a variety of ceramic objects she finds in thrift stores.

Art Professor Armando Ramos introduced Broz to the audience, saying he first met her in Los Angeles and was captivated by her creativity, adding he finds it inspirational how she got to where she is today.

Broz grew up in a small town in Missouri. She has been drawing since she was a child and her parents were very supportive of her dream of pursuing a career in art.

She took classes in painting and found the way it was taught too monotonous, she was put off by being told using the right techniques was extremely important.

Broz got accepted to a big college in St. Louis but her mother told her it was too expensive so she ended up attending a smaller college there where she got a full scholarship.

There she had a professor who told her “the content of your work is way more important than your techniques.”

After graduating college, Broz stayed in St. Louis and started working with two-dimensional and mixed media art.

A few years later, she found that St. Louis was too small for her so she moved to Austin, Texas.

When she got to Austin, Broz found a job as a pottery restorer and her employer told her she could have a trial period.

Broz discovered she was really good at restoring broken pottery.

“New doors opened for me when I realized that ceramics could be restored,” Broz said.

The starting point of her signature fusion art came when she found two ceramic lambs she envisioned merged together.

Broz brought the lambs back to her studio, decapitated one of them and attached the head to the other, creating a two-headed lamb.

She also said she likes the idea of creating something that has the ability to surprise or even to scare people.

Many times people have told her that she is ruining the objects and “they can’t stand it.”

In spite of the playfulness in her art it also carries a deeper meaning than what first meets the eye.

For example, she showed the audience an image of a sculpture she made that is of a whooping crane with a knot on its throat, symbolizing the many species of cranes that are going extinct.

The students who attended the speech appeared to enjoy hearing about her art and experience.

“I’m happy to be able to learn more of how professional art is working,” said City College student Marlon Castro Frausto.

Another City College student, Lovisa Edwards, also enjoyed Broz’s work.

“Her work is both playful and professional,” Edwards said.

Broz’s next art exhibition will be held in December and will last through mid-January in Santa Monica.