Aberration: Anomalies in Ceramic Figuration | June 10th – 14th, 2013

 

Before an idea can be effectively communicated, the mode of transmission and the language utilized must be easily understood. This five-day workshop will be presented in two parts. The first segment will strongly emphasize engaged “looking and seeing” with the majority of time spent in the transfer of that visual information onto clay. Participants will produce a number of facial studies. Facial features will be derived from life i.e. the mirror and fellow classmates. Perspective shifting, complex curvatures, detail, and believability will be stressed in order to effectively communicate your ideas. The second segment will be spent in the pursuit of the unconscious. We will consider the human form as it relates to the wild imagery of the hypnagogic and hypnopompic, coaxing those chimeras into physical form. In addition to an intense studio curriculum, a perpetual battery of images and presentations will be an integral aspect of this workshop. All skill levels are welcomed, however, it would behoove the participant to possess, at least, intermediate-level knowledge of hand building with clay. Some standard clay tools will be furnished but please plan on bringing your own modeling tools. Although firings will be an available option, emphasis will be placed on refining form and content.

…a bittersweet awareness of the transience of things…

I explore the ways in which every aspect of a life lived creatively can be considered and incorporated into an artistic practice; where daily customs, cleansing and harvesting rituals, consumption, masturbation, trauma, collecting, taxonomy, architecture, habitation and subsistence are platforms of pertinent and relevant inquiry.

My practice is multifarious, at its hub is the generation, cultivation, mediation and accumulation of objects that are sympathetic with temporality and flux, and largely, investigate the discourse between the immutable and fugacious. I look for beauty where there typically is none, mining for it in refuse, residues and the useless. I am drawn to, and seek to sublimate the anomalous, uncanny and ugly.