Mel's Late Summer Post II

Here is a new version of my artist statement, based on writing exercises and megan's super helpful comment.

My current studio work is a response to my search for a connection to a new landscape and environment. In the past, I made pots from local clay and fired mainly with wood and those pots were descriptive of the land from which they came. A rocky Maine coastline, a tangled California mountainside, and a bald North Carolina hill bore natural, earth-toned pots, with deep, yet simple surfaces. Here in central Pennsylvania, the earth in my small, square garden is tinged red. Instead of raw, rough clay dug from the ground, smooth clay with a uniform consistency feels more natural in a town where the commercial has overcome the local and the landscape is less dramatic and wild. I am interested in finding tension between the more austere, rough, physical pots that I have studied in the past and the intimacy of the pinching and line quality I am developing now.

Drawing on my faith in the innate intelligence of the motion of making, I allow momentum and intuition to guide my studio practice. My work is a balance between this action and instinct, with room for daydreams. Confident and lively movements are juxtaposed with affectionate attention to surface pattern and detail. The imagery reflects my current thoughts on the domestication of life, animals, and land. Characters are whimsical, but sometimes sad or lonely. Animals might be caged or freed by the form, and the surface landscape speaks both of cultivated earth and open horizons. Throughout the entire pot, I seek to balance comfort with adventure, structure with romance and possibility.