The Monument series began as a struggle.
The Monument series started as I entered my second year of graduate studies at Indiana University. I was coming out of a summer of great growth and productivity. My summer was spent assisting a potter and a sculptor in an effort to watch firsthand a working artistic ethos. With the new semester I had a new studio to myself, my first collegiate class to teach, deepening relationships, a strong studio ethic, and artistic direction. But despite my many rewarding responsibilities, I began to struggle with major depressive disorder. My vessel-based body of work with it symmetry, orderly craft, and predictably was no longer something I could engage with. So as my life had changed so my work had to change.
I began a textiles course through which I learned to screen print and quilt. I learned to print on fabric before tearing it into pieces, rearranging the parts, and then stitching them back together. The tearing was cathartic and the act of putting it back together was profound. It mirrored so well my reality as my life was in piece and I was having to learn to put it back together appreciating the parts in their new orientation. I was so inspired I had to take this home with me to ceramics and left the practice of wheel throwing to ‘clay quilt.’
To make the Monument series I clay quilt. I throw large slabs of clay across the floor letting them stretch, tear, and crack before slamming the pieces together to make large slabs. The slabs are then slumped over molds, hardened and then assembled into the large bodies of my sculptures.
The Monument series began as a struggle within myself and against myself. The sculptures turned from embodiments of struggle to monuments of perseverance. The monuments of the Monument series stands to mark the times of trial and conflict and draw strength from the knowledge that I made it through.
May 5, 2018
The Monument series started as I entered my second year of graduate studies at Indiana University. I was coming out of a summer of great growth and productivity. My summer was spent assisting a potter and a sculptor in an effort to watch firsthand a working artistic ethos. With the new semester I had a new studio to myself, my first collegiate class to teach, deepening relationships, a strong studio ethic, and artistic direction. But despite my many rewarding responsibilities, I began to struggle with major depressive disorder. My vessel-based body of work with it symmetry, orderly craft, and predictably was no longer something I could engage with. So as my life had changed so my work had to change.
I began a textiles course through which I learned to screen print and quilt. I learned to print on fabric before tearing it into pieces, rearranging the parts, and then stitching them back together. The tearing was cathartic and the act of putting it back together was profound. It mirrored so well my reality as my life was in piece and I was having to learn to put it back together appreciating the parts in their new orientation. I was so inspired I had to take this home with me to ceramics and left the practice of wheel throwing to ‘clay quilt.’
To make the Monument series I clay quilt. I throw large slabs of clay across the floor letting them stretch, tear, and crack before slamming the pieces together to make large slabs. The slabs are then slumped over molds, hardened and then assembled into the large bodies of my sculptures.
The Monument series began as a struggle within myself and against myself. The sculptures turned from embodiments of struggle to monuments of perseverance. The monuments of the Monument series stands to mark the times of trial and conflict and draw strength from the knowledge that I made it through.
May 5, 2018