STANDARDS

Core Art Standards: VA1, VA9, VA11

CCSS: R1, R4, W2

All Fired Up

How do these contemporary artists use clay to explore form and function?

Roll it. Coil it. Flatten it. Carve it. Glaze it. Fire it. How many ways are there to transform clay? Throughout history, cultures around the world have sculpted and heated clay. From vessels, which can hold something, to decorative objects, these are known as ceramics.

How can artists today keep a medium that’s thousands of years old interesting? The contemporary ceramicists, people who make ceramics, featured here explore and push the relationship between form—how an object looks—and function—what it’s used for. They take risks, build on tradition, and expand the possibilities of this ancient medium.

Enlargeable image of a vase with arms

Clementine Keith-Roach (b. 1984), Neither she nor we were willing, 2019. Found ceramic vessel, plaster, paint, copper coins. Courtesy of Clementine Keith- Roach, Ben Hunter Gallery, London, and P·P·O·W, New York.

Which parts of this vessel are old? Which parts are new?

Hands On

Clementine Keith-Roach embraces ceramic’s long history. She begins with antique vessels from the Mediterranean. These found objects once stored liquids. Today the artist uses an additive process to attach hands and arms.

For works like her 2019 Neither she nor we were willing, above, Keith-Roach applies plaster and paint to make her additions match the original vessel. She blurs the lines between ancient and contemporary, utilitarian (functional) object and art.

From her studio in England, Keith-Roach explores the intersection of different types of labor and art. “I see my gesturing, sculptural hands as pointing to the laboring hands that made/used these vessels and by extension to laboring hands in general,” she explains.

Enlargeable image of a flower vase that is also a lamp

Carmen D’Apollonio (b. 1973), I Don’t Care About You, 2022. Ceramic and cotton. Courtesy of Friedman Benda and Carmen D’Apollonio. Photo: Marten Elder.

Describe the form and function of D’Apollonio’s sculpture.

This Lamp Is Lit

Sometimes a practical need leads to innovation. “I started to do lighting because I needed some lamps for my home,” says Carmen D’Apollonio. If the self-taught artist’s 2022 I Don’t Care About You, above, also reminds you of a figure, you’re onto something. Her sculptures have anthropomorphic, or humanlike, characteristics. In this example, the form suggests a pair of crossed legs. The title also evokes a distinct personality. “Each lamp becomes its own character and seems like a little human,” the artist explains.

D’Apollonio, who was born in Switzerland and currently lives in Los Angeles, begins by sketching her ideas. Above all, she wants her work to be functional rather than simply a beautiful thing that sits on a shelf. What are the functions of I Don’t Care About You?

Enlargeable image of a cracked teacup

Takuro Kuwata (b. 1981), Yellow-Green Slipped Platinum Kairagi Shino Bowl, 2011. Porcelain. Art Institute of Chicago/Art Resource, New York.

How do Kuwata’s works surprise him?

Fancy a Cup of Tea?

You might see a cracked cup and toss it in the trash, but Takuro Kuwata (tah-koo-roh koo-wah-tah) relishes imperfections like the ones in his 2011 Tea Yellow-Green Slipped Platinum Kairagi Shino Bowl, above. Reflective silver shards crack across a green porcelain (a type of fine ceramic) surface, as if the vessel has outgrown its skin.

“Working with . . . colors makes me feel good, and the emotions that come from this kind of creation make . . . me feel very joyful,” the artist explains.

Kuwata creates this surface quality using glaze, a liquid applied to the surface of ceramics before firing—the process of heating to dry and harden them. Chemical reactions in the kiln, a special oven for firing ceramics, transform Kuwata’s work. After he glazes his ceramics, the artist never knows exactly what will emerge from the kiln.

The element of surprise is a key part of Kuwata’s process. The Japanese artist explores wabi-sabi (wah-bee sah-bee), a Japanese philosophy that finds beauty in things that are flawed. Do you see flaws, beauty, or both in the example above?

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