Artist Statement:
The most recent body of work has stemmed from a
kind of ceramic folklore involving peoples’ initial discovery of the
material. Before people fired pots they were a mobile society of basket
makers. As they began to cultivate the land and harvest a greater
surplus of grain they required more containers that would be resistant
to rodents and the open air. They lined their baskets with clay and in a
serendipitous event a fire destroyed most of their
material possessions but left them with some insight. The interior of
that basket became the first ceramic pot. Beyond its potential as a
prototype for their future, in its hardened exterior bore the
impressions of their past. It became a fossil to an ephemeral and mobile
society; a momento to a new culture that would seek eternal life
carving their name in earth.
kind of ceramic folklore involving peoples’ initial discovery of the
material. Before people fired pots they were a mobile society of basket
makers. As they began to cultivate the land and harvest a greater
surplus of grain they required more containers that would be resistant
to rodents and the open air. They lined their baskets with clay and in a
serendipitous event a fire destroyed most of their
material possessions but left them with some insight. The interior of
that basket became the first ceramic pot. Beyond its potential as a
prototype for their future, in its hardened exterior bore the
impressions of their past. It became a fossil to an ephemeral and mobile
society; a momento to a new culture that would seek eternal life
carving their name in earth.
The range of information this object says about
their society’s soft culture has lead me to find new meaning in our
material culture. If one can deduce that a mobile society produces
impermanent objects from ephemeral materials, and sedentary society
produces more permanent objects from archival materials; than what is to
be inferred from a culture which produces disposable objects from
permanent materials?
