The anxieties of a first kiss, the loss of identity in a foreign country, the spontaneous curiosity of touch
demonstrated in a finger mark on a piece of wet clay, are occurrences I find intoxicating. Working on the
potter's wheel, clay stretching between my fingers, I find a location, a capability outside of concept. It is
similar to courtship or viewing a sunset, the act of throwing a vessel is never insipid; it is suggestive and
full, it's offering is slow.
I view my time making as a private act. Yet those moments remain as tools to
initiate experiences and make connections with others in the world. Something ineffable happens when
using pottery. Perhaps it is a feeling of connectedness which is never forced or hurried, nor drifting or lost.
The experience is one of solidity, found in the participation of ones tactile sense. Pottery becomes a kind of
play; a regenerative act ripe with reverence, revealing the human hands enduring connection to creativity.
I don’t intend for my work to have a singular meaning. It is a chronology, an overview and illustrative
pause in time... It is a stretching of a moment to explore progression and development of an abstracted
event. Through ceramics, I am investigating issues of process and provenance, manifested as a collection
of ideas, images and objects.
Shawn's website
