Views | MFA Exhibition

Fosdick Nelson Gallery  |  Alfred, New York  |  2005

From my beginnings in ceramics I developed a consciousness of the body in relation to material. I became interested in the responsiveness of clay not only to my own actions but also to ways that material forms in relation to its own inherent qualities and forces present in the world. I am curious about how material can become more than just of what a work is made, but how the specific conditions, qualities, and transformative potential of material can become the basis for ideas in the work.

I set up conditions in the kiln to foster material interactions between cast hemispheres of porcelain filled with layers of glaze that slump, melt and solidify into luminous formations as temporal embedments of conflicting thermal processes and material properties. The resultant qualities of color, light and crystalline form manifest a sensual and optical ambiguity that in turn implicates our own sense of temporality and corporeality.

At ambient temperatures, the focus of my work is on giving presence and duration to material process through the movement of water as it seeps, drips, flows and pools. I want to slow down and extend our experience of these material changes moving through stages of evaporation, dissolution, precipitation and expansion. The resultant physical formations of clay and glaze materials have come to serve as a means by which the transformational process itself is made visible.