The Potter’s Landscape

Project

The Potter’s Landscape is an initial exploration into a proposed series of projects that will look at the act of creation through a macro lens. As an artist interacts with their medium, a trail of evidence is left behind. The remaining evidence tells its own captivating story born through an experiential moment in which the artist is one with their craft—when all else fades away. The resulting incidental and often overlooked details now take on varied forms of abstract expressionism. These gestural traces, tool marks, and cast-off materials create their own unique world open to interpretation. When throwing pottery, clay sourced from the earth takes on the characteristics of the geologic landscapes of its making: the scrape of tools mimics glacially-abraded lands, the drying and cracking of clay takes on the appearance of ancient lake beds and tectonic cracking. In these spontaneous acts of creation—in their miniaturized planes of existence—we see forms begin to emerge that echo the primal forces that shape our own shared world. This collection is a chance to reflect upon geologic legacies both real and implied, natural and created, where we have been and where we are headed.