Earthenware (raw and fired), Terra Sigillata, Frit, Plaster / 3' x 39' x 28' / 2018
Wonder | Wander
This work is the formal exploration of fragments, relics, and artifacts that I found myself enraptured by in museums and ruins. They were often humble in origin – loom weights, millstones, and crypt-wall bricks – but for me, they were charged with mystery. They felt secretive, like they held endless stories but communicated with such quietness that I could not hear. If I spoke their formal language, maybe I could have access to their secrets? My objects, made in response, share the common grammar of an inflated curve with an edge that interrupts and changes the direction of the curve. The objects and the field they are organized within are roughly composed of the same clay materials in different states. One is raw, unaltered, and impermanent (clay field) while the other is transformed and permanent (ceramic objects).
I process my own existence through making, and I internalize my work's formal properties. As I make harmonious forms, I find internal quietude and peace. When I produce these objects, I search for a sense of inflation and balance within each. Within the gesture of producing multiples I see evidence of an endless searching. In multiples, I can discover infinite variety and subtle difference. This installation contextualizes my experience of making the forms and encountering their sources: it is a space of wandering and wondering discovery. When we wander, our minds are often at rest while our bodies are ambulatory. For me, to wander is often also to wonder; both are to go astray into a place unknown.