By WENDY ALLISON
Her studio climbs up to temperatures of 100 degrees as the kiln spews forth tall, red flames. She looks in, watching the temperature gauge melt and thinking of her creations getting 'vitrified' hard in the fiery heat that will turn the matte glazes into vibrant colors.
Her dogs, Radio and Tully, run in and out of the studio, indecisive about whether to endure the blazing sun or the heat of the kiln, but they stay inside to protect her as she works. At the end of the day, she finds comfort from these huge Old English sheep dogs as she lies in bed with them, feeling a content exhaustion that is proof of her day's hard work.
Ceramist enthusiast Von Dee Allen gladly works because she has achieved her goal of becoming a ceramic professor. It was a hard thing to accomplish, putting herself through school, becoming one of the first women in the arts department and the first non-LDS faculty member, but now she has become the director of the ceramics department.
'I was hired 20 years ago from a college arts association conference,' Von said.
Positions at the conference are rare; only a few open each year, so Von was competing against hundreds of other candidates.
'We selected candidates names from the conference,' said Bob Marshall, professor of visual arts. 'Then we brought back to the art department faculty, who made recommendations.'
The hiring process is the same for potentials who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and also those who are not members. In the next step, both must interview with an ecclesiastical leader in Salt Lake.
'A general authority introduces them to the fact that we are an institution under the governing body of the church,' he said. 'Every faculty member must sign a contract, with very specific things about how to conduct themselves. It is the same contract for non-LDS faculty; they are assumed to be honorable in their own faith and live by the same standards as the LDS faculty.'
Von holds herself to a high standard of moral values even without the honor-code like contract.
'My two prongs are working hard and kindness,' she said. 'My test of good action is if the action is selfish, dishonest in any way, misleading or if it will cause me to profit in some way that I am not entitled to, I don't do it. It's hard to live by, but you've got to have standards.'
Her co-workers notice her as being a person of good values even in a university where she is the minority.
'She's all that a BYU professor should be and more.' Marshall said.
But Von is different from most BYU faculty in other ways: she is a single woman, without husband or children, and she comes from an unusual family background.
'I was raised in a home very different from most of the people I work with,' Von said. 'Most people here come from very educated families, but my father was working class and only went to eighth grade. He's very intelligent; he's just not educated.'
She had to overcome these difficulties in order to prove herself against the hundreds of other candidates applying for the job. They hired her because she distinguished herself with her eccentric personality, her awesome portfolio pieces and her past experience.
' discovered clay as a student at Edinboro University in Pennsylvania during the late '60s and early '70s,' said an article published by Ceramic Monthly.
As a student in the bachelor's of science in art education, she was expected to explore diverse mediums of art.
'I started out in printmaking and drawing,' she said. 'They forced me to take a ceramics class.'
Although she had never worked with clay before, it seemed to stick with her. She then looked for opportunities to learn more about it.
'I got accepted at Syracuse University in New York into the master's of fine arts program,' Von said. 'Then I went to Rochester where my cousins lived and set up a studio.'
It was from there that Von met the BYU recruiters and then moved to Provo, a town that is very different from the New York she was used to.
'It's a great place; look, you can see the mountains, there are good students and I like my colleagues,' she said. 'It's a long way from home but that's the way it goes.'
However, Utah did have one problem for her to adjust to -- the weather. In New York she was known for making large but delicate forms out of thin porcelain. These 'celestial beings,' she called them, were included in her application portfolio to BYU.
'When she got here the weather was so dry,' said Michael Porter, a graduate student who teaches the beginning ceramics class.
'The clay cracks when it dries fast, so she couldn't build them anymore.'
But she was too busy as a professor to dedicate any time to her art anymore.
'She has an incredible time committed to manage the studio, making sure the equipment is stocked, unloading and ordering materials and firing the kilns,' Marshall said. 'She spends as much time teaching as she does managing the studio.'
She has dedicated a lot of effort into her job, also striving to make additions and improvements to the program.
'She did a lot of things to change, enhance and build the ceramics at BYU to be a nationally recognized ceramics department.' Porter said.
Yet, Von tries to find some time to explore new avenues and work with her own projects.
'Many months were filled with the challenges of teaching and managing a clay program,' she said in Ceramic Monthly. 'When I began to take time for new direction in my work, I took advantage of .'
She decided to go with a post-modernist approach, doing extensive research for her symbolic sculptures.
'She's making a series of charm bracelets that focus around the themes of mythical and ancient symbols,' said one of her students, Hannah Robinson, an art major with ceramic studio emphasis. 'Each one has a different symbol behind it.'
These unique pieces portray some of the changes she has brought to BYU as director of the ceramics department.
'When she came to BYU it was pretty much a pottery directed program,' Porter said. 'They didn't have a master's program unless you were doing something in the direction of functional pottery, but she came in and introduced the broader spectrum of ceramic sculpture.'
She also opened up a world of low-fire nonfunctional glazes to the program, some which she has created herself. And, she made it so that the graduate students could teach beginning level ceramic classes, thus expanding the exposure of BYU students to the arts.
Von cares a lot for each of her students, protecting them, getting them into art shows and pushing them to expand their knowledge.
'Von is the type of person that allows the students creative expression in what they do,' Marshall said. 'But she also expects excellent performance, proof that they've been working very hard. She responds to the creative work they are doing, challenging them to enquire about possibilities and to continue to probe and research.'
She applied this principle of researching not only to her own ceramic career, but also as she develops her other passion of cooking.
'Cooking is my hobby,' Von said. 'I even didn't learn to cook until later in life; I started around the time I arrived at BYU. I really didn't know anything so I started out with all my favorite things: chocolate cake for a week until I got it down and then meatloaf. After that, I began to expand my knowledge. I'd research recipes, try them out and make absolutely ridiculous mistakes.'
As with her ceramics, she tries again and again until it is satisfactory. She is creative, and also meticulous.
'Von will undertake a hobby until she becomes to be proficient in it,' Porter said. 'She's really done a lot with her cooking, and now she could even be a gourmet cook.'
Her love for the kiln and firing her creations extends to her love for the stove and baking her concoctions. Because her beloved dogs cannot share in this passion of hers, she tests her recipes on all her friends and colleagues.
'We've all tasted her cooking at some odd times such as new soup or new bread recipes at late night department meetings,' Marshall said. 'She'll eat anything and try anything.'
The ceramics students also profit from her cooking expertise. They usually get together during a bisque firing to cook anything that can be roasted over the flames.
'I love her cooking,' Robinson said. 'I once tried a seven layer dip she made with spinach and cheese; it was really good.'
Although her food is great, her students said they are glad to have her as a professor instead of a chef.
'I once dreamed of running away and becoming a pastry chef, and then I found out that I'd have to get up at four in the morning. So, I decided to stick to teaching.'
She started her cooking experiments with family recipes from back home in Pennsylvania, but now she tries out styles from all different cultures.
'I get a lot of cooking magazines from other countries,' she said. 'I get Australian, Great Britain and even some magazines from other countries that you can buy translated.'
When she cooks foreign dishes, it reminds her of the times she traveled before settling down in Salt Lake.
'From the time I could speak, I wanted to travel, see the world and leave Franklin, Pa.,' she said. 'I've been everywhere, all over Europe, Paris, Greece, Yugoslavia and Morocco, but that was before I got my job and my dogs.'
Now she has adapted to the rural life. She moved up to Salt Lake to have a house with a big yard for her dogs.
'Once I'm here, I'm here; I don't like to leave,' she said. 'But I didn't expect to stay for 20 years.'
The students, colleagues and friends she made, influenced her decision to stay in Utah.
'My personal feeling about life is that it is the small pleasures that make us happy,' she said. 'The morning sunlight coming in a certain window, a beautiful sunset, the view of the mountains, a breeze across my arm when I'm in my studio sweaty, falling asleep at night when my body is tired.'