Play with Your Clay!
I’ll never forget mushing my hands into a lump of damp clay that my art teacher plopped in front of me in 4th grade. Everybody received the same lump, but what we all did with it was wildly different. I made a face/ashtray, duh! The kid in all of us comes out when we play with clay, and that’s part of its enormous appeal.
Today, a new generation of artists is pushing the boundaries of art-making through ceramics. Inspired by OG practitioners such as Betty Woodman, whose works are pictured above, artists are experimenting with unpredictable kiln effects like exploding glazes, personhood, in terms of “we are made of clay” and challenging the status quo by elevating ceramic to the loftier realm of sculpture. Woodman, who recently passed away at the age of 88, is a bonafide “trail-glazer,” whose energetic forms and stunning palette give the best oil paintings a run for their money.
Why Ceramics and Why Now?
FOR COLLECTORS
For many would-be collectors, Contemporary art can be mystifying, and expensive. Ceramics offer an easier point of access, both visually and economically.
Literal in form, organic in makeup: the simple combination of earth + water baked at very high temperatures yields straightforward results
There’s comfort in the tactility of ceramics and delight in beautiful glazes
Asian porcelain (a type of ceramic), has long been collected, which validates the viability of a lasting market for ceramics
FOR ARTISTS
Ceramics offer an approachable entry into the world of making
In contrast, painting and sculpture are loaded mediums
Let’s break that down: an ambitious painter is stepping into history when the brush touches a canvas
The legacy of painting, its famous creators and its inherent biases precede the act (ditto with bronze, or with marble for that matter)
Ceramics are painting and sculpture’s chill sibling, providing a communal maker space for artists to work alongside artisans
FOR EVERYONE
Speaking of chill: fired in a kiln, molded from warm clay, ceramics engender a comfort factor that Danes call hygge: surrounding ourselves with warm materials and tactile objects to create a cozy sense of well-being
…not to mention sensuality (that’s not just the kiln heating up 🥵)
🚨 Trend Alert 🚨
Recent exhibitions reflect increased interest in, and awareness of ceramics:
Sterling Ruby: Ceramics at the Museum of Art and Design, New York 2019
Making Knowing: Craft in Art 1950-2019, at the Whitney Museum, New York 2019-2020
Clay Pop, at Deitch Projects, New York, a sold-out survey show, fall 2021
The Flames: The Age of Ceramics, at the Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris (right now!) that begins with the first ceramics, created around 3,500 BC, to the present
...et voilà! Ceramics may be trending now, but they’ve been around for millennia!
The Origin Story
REWIND ⏪ 3,500 BC
Before the invention of paper, scribes relied on clay tablets to write
Tablets *pre-iPad* = a mix of water and earth left to bake in the hot sun, could be “wiped clean” by rehydrating in water
When burned by fire, they remained fixed forever
IT’S A GLOBAL THING
Sumerians and Egyptians were experts at firing and glazing clay, which they used for architecture (tiles and bricks), as well as decorative purposes (beaded jewelry), and funerary objects (#afterlife)
Greeks and Romans used ceramic to store grains and wine, but also as ceremonial, painted trophies
China was producing porcelain, a highly refined type of ceramic, by around 1,500 BC
Persians also used refined glazes, creating exquisite tiles that covered mosque interiors
Through a cross-pollination of cultures in medieval Spain, clay innovations traveled into Portugal and Italy
By the early Renaissance, Florence was the center of ceramic production in Europe, where exquisitely formed and glazed dishes and bowls were all the rage
Ceramics were also used to make sculptural reliefs that were embedded into the facades of buildings and church interiors
FAST FORWARD ⏩ 20TH CENTURY
In the early 20th Century, pioneering Modern artists like Picasso and Matisse came to the South of France to escape chaotic city life
Vallauris, a Riviera town, had an ancient tradition of ceramics dating to Roman times, because its earth is particularly well suited to firing at high temperatures
Picasso, reacting against the pressures of painting, found simplicity by the sea, and also ceramics!
From the late 1940s on, Picasso made hundreds of unique and editioned sculptures in Vallauris’ famous ceramics studio
His charming and creative ceramics found their way into the homes of both Picasso collectors and those who could never afford the paintings, remaining at accessible price points to this day
Golden State Glow-Up
San Francisco is the city most associated with ceramics (extra credit: read the Cromwell Art Snack primer on the Bay Area art scene here)
In the 1890s, an Arts & Crafts architecture and design movement, located throughout California, took hold as a reaction against Industrialism
In 1906, a fire destroyed San Francisco, galvanizing Arts & Crafts artisans and artists to rebuild, so crafts proliferated
Studios and schools to train artists that were established in Northern California are still going strong today
From Object ➡️ Art
“Clay is nothing but thick paint, and paint is nothing but thin clay.” —Peter Voulkos
Perhaps no artist has been as influential in the field of American ceramics as Peter Voulkos (1924 - 2002)
In the 1950s, Voulkos applied the principles of Abstract Expressionist painting to ceramics (think: if Jackson Pollock spilled paint on his liquor bottle)
Plot twist: Voulkos made sculptures with ceramic, not lamp bases or pitchers, removing the function from form
This small difference created a huge leap forward in the possibilities for the medium, which could be thrown on a wheel, OR flattened and cut into strips—to endless effect
Voulkos ran the ceramics departments at UCLA, UC Berkeley, and the Archie Bray Foundation in Montana, the oldest ceramics residency in the US
Viola Frey, whose work is pictured above Voulkos’, was equally influential as Chair of Ceramics at the California College of Arts and Crafts for 3 decades
Genius Strikes Again
Remember Marcel Duchamp’s iconic Fountain from 1917? (If you read the Conceptual Art Snack you’d know what I mean. But if you missed it, no biggie. Just click below 👇)
SparkNotes: Duchamp bought a real urinal, signed it with a fake name, R. Mutt, and exhibited the work as art, permanently opening the floodgates as to what could be considered a work of art
How brilliant that this “ready-made”—as Duchamp called his sculptures—is a porcelain toilet? The ultimate high-low strategy (I mean, all the points here, guys, all of ‘em!)
Over a century later, the OG Conceptual artist’s impact looms large
Case in point? Woody De Othello’s hand-made ceramic sculpture, pictured above, which pays homage to Duchamp
Ceramics on 🔥
Because we’re snack-sized, below is a list of some of the artists whose ceramics I’ve placed in noteworthy private collections. Consider this your snack sampler.