From the early 1970s, Jacqueline Biaggi has explored the many avenues of art as a student, teacher, exhibitor and museum curator, first in her native Puerto Rico, then in New York City and now Oxnard.

But since moving here in 1995, she has focused on ceramics: on sculpting objects, figures and vessels to express “psychological and spiritual issues, history and traditions, significant experiences in my life, memories, day-to-day experiences,” she said.

“I have come to an age where I reflect and meditate over the events in my life and the challenges I have met,” said Biaggi, who has gathered some of these Memories and Thoughts in Clay for an exhibit by that name at Harbor Village Gallery. It will run Oct. 24-Nov. 26 in the Buenaventura Art Association’s seaside art venue, with an artist reception set for 5-8 p.m. Oct. 26.

Her parents encouraged her early pursuit of an art career, she said, and her father supported her during her studies.

“My mother was a painter, but she was taking care of seven kids,” Biaggi said. “She painted a new mural in our bedrooms every Christmas and did portraits. She was proud of me being a part-time artist and would tell me, ‘You are what I wanted to be.’ ”

After high school, Biaggi studied at an art institute and university in Puerto Rico before moving to New York. There she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute in 1976, majoring in printmaking, drawing, painting and ceramics, and a Master of Fine Arts in 1983, with studies in sculpture, ceramics and painting

“At first, I liked printmaking best and ceramics was a minor. Then I focused on painting and drawing while getting my master’s,” she said. “I have only done ceramics in the last 15 years and that is the best thing in my life at this time.

“For the past decade my passion has been working in clay. I am an intuitive artist and clay is the best medium that expresses my emotions and spiritual life,” Biaggi said. “On the surface of the vessels, I carve images where serenity takes place … Many of my stories begin with an inspiration of memories that become images, giving life to the vessel. Color creates emotion, by adding layers of slips and textures and by glazing I get transparencies and the images come alive.”

She is fascinated by emotions and the psychological world of individuals, she said, and the faces in her works “are emotional imprints of feelings.”

Biaggi, who usually works on several pieces simultaneously, said, “I have created a daily routine, waking up and working early, like a meditation with my morning thoughts.”

Thanks to her years of study, “I am inspired by archaeological relics of all periods of the human experience and nature’s beauty,” she said. “I am constantly reflecting on these rich traditions and the cultures that made them. Researching and studying nourishes my working process.”

Biaggi’s ceramic sculptures have received many awards in the Adah Callahan Professional Juried Art Show at the Ventura County Fair over the past dozen years. She is a member of the Ventura County Potters Guild and a participant in many exhibitions in Oxnard and Ventura.

To view Biaggi’s latest earthenware expressions of her Memories and Thoughts in Clay, visit the gallery at 1591 Spinnaker Drive in Ventura Harbor Village, which is open noon-5 p.m. daily except Tuesdays. For more information about the exhibit or the nonprofit Buenaventura Art Association, call 648-1235 or visit the website www.buenaventuragallery.org.