Recent Work

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Here is a slide show of my recent work. I will be having a slide talk and then an opening on May 29th at the Pottery Workshop here in Jingdezhen. PWS is a great place to meet new foreign artist coming into Jingdezhen. We usually go there every friday night to listen to a lecture. Below is my artist statement of my new work, enjoy!


Sacred Relationships

After being in China for nine months, I have made it an effort to combine Chinese architecture, my Christian faith, and culture into my ceramics. The pagoda temples have been my main inspiration and study in China after visiting different cultural areas in Jiangxi and Anhui Provinces. The architecture has provided me with a framework to connect Chinese sensibilities of design in various ways in my work. This is further expressed through the architectural elements found in Chinese architecture's repetition, angular roofs, overhangs, and overall design. Creating vessel-oriented forms was one approach to connect my ideas. My temples are abstracts of my fusion of pagodas, western utilitarian ceramics, and Christian iconography/beliefs.
Construction of the large vessels is done on the wheel by making multiple parts and attaching them together in the leather hard stage. Creating many sections in this manner gives the process a more structural feel. Alterations to the forms from paddling and cutting away clay can also create a stronger form.
Revisiting the stacking of forms to build a new one was also a focus in this series. Using strictly functional forms to create a new structure gave a different element of design through repetition and scale. The ability to deconstruct the temple was another way to play with the forms and to express historical symbolism of the Christian faith.
Further study of Chinese architecture has also let me re-examine my western utilitarian forms. Finding new shapes on the wheel through alterations, cutting away clay, and moving the clay in various ways has been successful. Moving the clay upward through the rim to create an undulating ending point has given new movement to pieces. Squaring the form has been a new trend in this series. This has created a canvas to decorate on with thick slip or trailing glaze.
Making utilitarian ceramics, I feel, is the one art that satisfies all our needs, which is to create a functional interaction for use, display, and discourse. For me, this builds and strengthens relationships, which is completely satisfied through gatherings around food or everyday meals. It is a moment in time that we are thankful for the food and health that we have.
It is these parallels between faith and function that I am interested in. In the American culture we are losing these types of relationships steadily. People, state, and religion are following how culture dictates our lives. Churches and temples across the world still have a function and purpose for us. We as a people are becoming too independent and always want to change the ways for our own personal needs. Now as I am disconnected to what I know and sharing these interactions through a different culture, I feel more obligated to bring my culture back to the morals and values we have lost. Whether it is through visual interactions or everyday rituals, it is my desire to build relationships around beautiful objects that can make the viewers question the work or themselves.

Hangzhou

With an extra day off for Labor Day, Kim and I decided to travel to Hangzhou. This old city has the largest freshwater lake in China. It was just a 5 hour bus ride to the lake and we were happy to visit here. Even though the lake was extremely crowded because of the holiday, we manage to get around the large lake the first day by bicycle. This was fun, but a whole story in itself! Buses, people, scooters, and other bikes made it a white knuckle experience.

We made it to many spots like the nursery, lotus view area, a pagoda, and other nooks and crannies. The second day we hiked through a tea village, which produces green tea. After enjoying a cup of tea and playing some Chinese card games we made it to a beautiful viewing area at the end of the trail.

We stayed in a dormitory style hostel with 3 to 8 other people. They ranged from Paris, Morocco, Austria, and America. Each night our roommates surprised us!!! A girl from America fell off of the top bunk! We plan on never staying in a dorm style room again. At least it only cost us 7 bucks each a night!

The great pic of Kim eating is actually at Papa John's! It was just like home, they even had the garlic-butter dipping sauce. We also ate at a Indian restaurant that had great Mango Lassi's and veggie curry. It was so nice to have a little of home. We also had some Starbucks our final morning before we headed for the bus station. Hope you all enjoy our pictures!

more HK + Shenzhen Ceramic Show

This are some pics we got from our friend Kerrie. You can see the light show they do in HK each night! Our show went well and will be finished in a couple weeks. We have not heard if anything sold yet, so we will see. It was good to get work setup in a different space here. This has really lead me into what I want to make next, especially for making work for galleries and not for the table. I am going to give a slide lecture at the end of the month and then a show of my recent work. I will be firing the soda kiln at the end of the month.

Over to Hong Kong

Here we are in Hong Kong!!! After we setup our show over the border in Shenzhen, China, we took the subway to the other side. We actually had to go through customs, since HK is separate from the mainland with it's own gov't and monetary system. The city is very populated and after The UK gave it back to China they did not want an in flux of people coming over....

So we had our 24 hours there and it was unexpected. Probably the most building I have seen per square mile. The mountains all around make it seem surreal. We did not even get to see the more natural settings the islands have to offer.

Public transportation rocks! We went from subway, to ferry, to trolley in half a day. Nice to have in a big city, but of course overwhelming! You forget which way you are going. Luckly we had our own tour guide, our friend Kerrie.

As soon as we got off the subway to take a look at the "Mansions" we would be staying in, the city flare was very apparent. People from many different countries trying to sell you things, take you to hotel or mansions, and who knows what else. Since everything is vertical, we had to go up to find a place to stay for one night. It was kind of like the movies were you see these creepy places and low ceilings. The "mansions" were not at all like the name. All had tiny rooms and were very cramped. You knew you were in a city with this kind of atmoshere and living arrangements. I am even more sure I could never live in this type of enviroment. Think God we still have some land left back home to buy and build on! We finally found a place and ventured off to get some local food, dim sum! Yummm!

After that we took the ferry over to the main island and then took a trolley/bus around. This was very cool b/c it started to get dark and there were lights and colors everywhere. Sorry some of the images are blurry! We also ate at a burger joint with some people Kerrie knew and got a couple of things at a store called H&M. Cool store, Kim and I both picked out green shirts and sandles after a half and hour of shopping by ourselves! Weird!

The next day we went to the star alley next to the pier and overlooking the main city scape. We saw Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee there! We even fought Bruce for a minute before a swarm of other visitors wanted a piece of him!!!

More pics are coming so please check us out. More of HK and our ceramic show in Shenzhen. See you then~