Handbuilt Ceramic Art

Artists Describing Their Art:

Avril Ward - Artist's statement. Creating has become an intricately woven part of my life. I must express nature, as it is my window to God. I must delight in the human body, a marvel that never ceases to amaze. I must express love and joy-this keeps them tangible in my life. I must trust my instincts and skills allowing them to lead me in the right direction. Most importantly: if my art can move a person to pause, think, smile, ponder, cry, laugh, be encouraged or give them hope, then I have served my purpose in life." To view a video about, my inspiration and work methods in sculpture please copy and paste the link to your browser.

Linda Casbon - In Paul Valery's words, "to see is to forget the name of the thing one sees". My work translates forms into a language of metaphoric associations. It hints at meanings without using literal descriptions. Objects are the visual sounds of this language. When placed together these words form a sentence, a poem, and a kind of narrative with its own internal logic. The pieces look like . . . feel like . . . sound like . . . but cannot be consciously identified or named. With this work I am striving for a sense of unnameable familiarity. Some of the work consists of single objects. I view these pieces as words or emblems. More often the work is a group of objects, or a composition. Ceramic forms are used as a sculptural canvas to draw on, creating interplay between painted shapes and actual shapes. The physical scale and formal qualities of the work reference the body. Current series include: "Pillows" which have a volume reminiscent of lungs and breathing, "Tunnels" and "Blankets" which focus on differences between inside and outside and the idea of transformational space, and "Cages" which utilize structural elements to create form and explore three-dimensional mapping and order versus randomness. The surfaces and ...

Linda Casbon - Daniel Janssens - "It is the woman's beauty and mystery that have made me paint and sculpt in the first place." The artist, who previously painted only one human figure per painting, has recently begun to represent several figures, and these figures are no longer exclusively women. In sculpture also, the single human figures of the beginning are gradually replaced by intertwined figures, that go by two, by couple, or even by trio or quartet. "Previously, it was the individual that questioned me. Now, increasingly, I paint and sculpt attitudes and relationships." Painting and sculpture are based on different relationships: that between the sculptor-painter and his painting or sculpture, that between colors and shapes, that between the spectator and the work of art, and finally, the possible relationship between the different spectators. "However, I have not become a narrative artist, even if the spectator can invent stories about the human figures they see depicted." - But why only one subject? - Because the more one concentrates on one - and only one - subject, the deeper one can go, and the more style and technique can speak freely. If one always seeks to change subjects, it becomes difficult to specialize in it." It is the...

Thomas Van Horn - I believe in an ongoing creation. All new moments and the events therein, even the thoughts, are evidence of the creation happening. When I work artistically, or any other way, I participate in that creation. I co-create with the mechanism of creation with what I like to call my heart mind hands. Every stroke of the brush is absolutely new to the universe. It's never happened just like that before. Even if I could make the exact same mark twice, which I can't, the surrounding circumstances and environment would be different for each mark. I don't try to plan a work too much because every work seems to take on its own life and guides me more than me guiding it. I jokingly call my genre accidentalism as so many works seem to result from happy accidents. In the balance of intuition and craft, I have leaned towards letting it go rather than making it come. ...