Ceramic art / pottery — artist statement:

snack defender

I am a narrative artist. I shape metaphors of fictional ideals with my clay art work to communicate a microscopic and imaginary story about the balance of living creatures.

The pod series are about people and food. A simplified personification of "you are what you eat." They are plant-critters, both plants and animals at the same time. I often mix the two ideas rather then realistically render animal forms or pure plant shapes, because human beings are omnivores. I also am obsessed with our symbiotic dependent relationship with the microscopic world because we attempt and fail to sterilize our food, in spite of the fact that like all living creatures we can't survive without beneficial bacteria in our own bodies especially for digestion and the upkeep of our fragile cellular chemical balance that is needed to maintain our life energy and to fight disease.

detail, inside of snack defender

Because of the cheapness of the oil age, causing the post industrial generation's seeming obliviousness to our connection and dependency on our environment, the pod series has evolved into the defender series. The pots are like cacti monsters, and I've been having a lot of fun naming them with puns according to their symbolic usefulness.

Spiked and twisted beverage defender mugs for the post oil age, to serve as weapon in hand if scarcity of clean water and resources knocks civilized behavior down a few rungs. Gravy boat to protect and serve the good sauces. Punch-cups, and "platelets" Shaped like natural killer cells, white cell or giant blood platelets.

Alternatively if the green revolution is a success and we don't sink into a new dark age when the earth runs out of oil, then the defender series are science fiction props. I love science fiction. I'm rooting for the diversification of renewable energy, smart micro grids, small local eco-conscious businesses and global internet communication to change our world for the better, post oil.

technique' - I throw forms on the wheel (spheres, bowl shapes and cylinders ) to have sturdy thin compressed shapes that I can stretch, alter and add pulled handles and spikes to.

materials - I prefer stoneware and earthenware over chemically white "clay" because it is the natural local stuff the earth is made of in North America. Also earthenware clay fires at a much lower temperature by a few thousand degrees, then porcelain. I enjoy the dichotomy of both the permanent and breakable balance of fired clay.

defender mug and platelet waiting to be fired at Berkley Potters Studio

   

creative process - I work slowly, I'm not a production potter, nor the type of artist who quickly covers a surface in one pass. It takes me easily three or sometimes four times as long to build the ceramic art then it does to throw the original forms. I strive to have the first layer of the pots surface fired into the raw clay. I like to apply some pigmented slips onto the surface of my raw clay to react to glazes fired on top of them in the final firing. I glaze with a brush, in a very painterly style. I have a series of glaze bases that I'm constantly testing to keep a full pallet of hues that work together. There are multiple glazes on all of my pots. Each surface is at least two layers, sometimes three layers of fired on color and texture.

Peace - make pots not war, or plastic, or trash the earth with toxic chemicals etc..

☮ + ❤ Uva Be Dolezal

giant white and cobalt speckled defender mug

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