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Rare Earth

Artist's Statement

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Artist's Statement - Archive

I can't resist the need to rewrite my artist's statement every few years, but I don't want to dispose of the old ones completely. So, in the interest of archiving the past, here are some old versions.

2005

My work is straightforward, functional pots; made in groups on the wheel and intended to be used by people as daily objects. With subtle alterations to traditional forms and glazes, I make a variety of objects that - I hope - each carry the imprint of the time and place they come from.

I am strongly influenced by the Leach tradition (and therefore by Japanese and Korean aesthetics), modern mingeisota potters, the idea of "truth to materials" and issues of utility. I attempt to balance the tension between form and surface. At their best, my pots have an internal stylistic consistency and are focused on the details of craft.

At the same time, I want each one to be unique and interesting - a small sculptural statement in clay. To that end, I am constantly exploring new forms, methods and glazes.

2003

I am currently an independent artist, working from my home studio. I've been a potter since around 1993, in a part-time capacity the majority of that time. In the other half of my life (the full-time half) I work as a web designer, which is currently an efficient means of keeping the bills paid. As a part-time venture, St. Earth Pottery essentially pays for itself, and while I aspire to earn a greater share of my living from pots, I don't make many concessions to the marketplace. An awfully mundane place to start, but I think the economics of art are an important factor currently affecting my work.

A bit of history: Following a few childhood attempts, my first experience with clay came midway through an undergraduate English degree at the University of Iowa in 1991. About six weeks into the first semester I was pretty hooked, and by the time we got to wheel throwing in semester two I knew it was going to be a permanent thing.

The big clincher, however, was two summers spent working with Clary Illian, an former apprentice at the Leach Pottery in the mid-1960's, at her studio in Ely, Iowa. In addition to being a great opportunity to develop my work, I absorbed details of her work ethic, process, aesthetics and philosophy, most of which continues to be a strong influence on me. She remains one of the potters I admire most.

I spent a great year working at Arizona State University, where I learned a lot from Kurt Weiser and started making up for time missed by not getting a BFA degree. Following that were three years in Colorado, while my wife was in graduate school, working in a co-op studio (The Boulder Potters' Guild) and developing my portfolio in preparation for grad school. In 1998-99, I was a grad student at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, where I completed one year towards an MFA degree (long story). From there, I set up my first home studio in 1999.

My motivation:
1] being negentropic (that is, the opposite of entropic)
2] creating self-awareness through the medium of clay
3] generating a sense of progress/meaning through creating things
4] producing quality work for its own sake

Freedom from financial obligation in the studio (at the sacrifice of a lot of time and energy spent elsewhere) is a very positive force. By nature, I'm prone to caution, careful evolution in small iterations, staying with the known and comfortable. In the studio, these can be serious creative liabilities, so keeping money mostly out of the equation helps me take more risks.

My current interest is in making work that is expressive and unique, yet related to the vessel tradition. I refer to historical and modern pots stylistically, and while I'm not afraid of imitation, I always try to find my own route to a desired end. I am continually drawn to the wheel as a starting point, and work to expand the possibilities and assumptions of wheel-oriented work.

I generally make straightforward, functional pots; traditional forms and glazes, made in groups on the wheel and intended to be used by people as daily objects. They are strongly influenced by the Leach tradition (and therefore by Japanese aesthetics), modern mingeisota potters, issues of utility, and the supremacy of form. These pots have an internal stylistic consistency and are focused on attention to the details of craft.

Occasionally, I make other types of work that counter-balance these pots - almost like the evil-twin phenomena. While still related to vessels, they tend to be more sculptural, larger, more singular and expressive. They are often woodfired, and sometimes incorporate all the things I wouldn't do to a utilitarian pot: punching holes, ripping and cracking the clay, thick-walled, rough, more random. They have a function that is either ambiguous or denies traditional concepts of use. In some ways, they depart from the vessel tradition of containment and enter the realm of something else - mysterious things populating my landscape. My guess is that this happens because of the cutting and puncturing, violating the sacrosanct containing walls of the vessel, working with scale in ways that eliminate reasonable possibilities for use, and approaching surface as more of a dominant element.

All my clay work has evolved from the firing processes available to me at different times. Over the years, access to more elaborate firing processes, like woodfiring, salt and soda, has suggested new forms, new stylistic approaches. At times when I have to rely on a gas reduction kiln only, it creates dissatisfaction with my glazes, which prompts experimentation that always results in something new (and occasionally good). These in turn suggest forms which capitalize on their character, and eventually new strains of work evolve. Ideally, over time, these changes to all the pots as a group will appear to have the consistency of a family, but with the variety and depth of individuals.

But enough of the wordy stuff. As Warren MacKenzie has said, it's time to "Let the pots speak."