I started making pots as part of my art practice in 2018, and have moved back and forth between pots and sculpture since.
Jar, glazed earthenware, 2020
Jar, glazed earthenware, 2020
Dessert Plate, glazed earthenware, 2020
Teabowl, glazed earthenware, 2020
Teabowl, glazed earthenware, 2022
Dessert Plate, glazed earthenware, 2020
Jar, glazed earthenware, 2020
Pots from 2018-2020, soda-fired stoneware and earthenware
When I was growing up, my family had a way of holding on to broken pots, tools and utensils that went beyond mere thrift. There was an unspoken sense that the wares of our everyday lives had a significance to them, that damage and wear didn’t necessarily detract from an object, and that the improvised solution (of say, a particular plate as the replacement lid for a saucepan) was a good solution. I remember in particular the chipped ironstone platter whose glaze was crazed and deeply stained from serving decades of bloody roasts.
In high school, I became interested in ceramics out of a kind of Emersonian desire for self-reliance, imagining the independence I would have by producing the objects of my own daily life. The material transformation of ceramics fascinated me, and as I continued pursuing clay working in college, my focus became more about the surface and my work became more sculptural. I still loved pots, and I was always a consumer and user of pots. As a student, I worked alongside people who became great potters, and I envied their creative rhythm and the connection they made with their users (as opposed to “viewers”). Over the years, I learned more about pots from eating and drinking from them (and washing them) than I had from making them.
The faces on some of the pots came about in a kind of pareidolia moment as I played with different ways of using my hand to mark a form. When I first saw a face staring back at me, I laughed in spite of myself—there was something so absurd and almost stupid about it, but also an undeniable presence that fascinated me. I’m still sorting out whether or not these faces are reflections of something in me, or messengers from somewhere outside myself, but in any case they seem like an appropriate, nonsensical response to the current moment.