.................................................ART is a visual language...ART is a manifestation of our humanity...Bernard Leach was important to ceramics but was a poser nonetheless...Technique in ceramics is important but MUST serve the greater purpose of EXPRESSION...Technical preoccupation in ceramics is a lazy way to avoid actually saying something, of having to think of something worthwhile to say then saying it...When civilizations at last collapse, only ART remains...It seems self-evident that without some degree of craft there can simply be no art object to view...The shape of a pot is like us, unlike the shape of a painting which is not like us...A spiral, though iconically frozen as a symbol, encapsulates the permanence of change in the world...Symbols are compact ways of saying many things at once...Any aritist of the present day knows the imperative necessity of making her or his art but experiences the difficulty in finding adequate support to do it exclusive to all other activites...The realm of formal expressive possibilities, if any are to be postulated in a work of art, require a continual reworking to adequately address the unrealized potentials of a subject...Works of art can communicate across time and cultures while words frequently fail...A kiln becomes the extension of an embodied mind to congeal plastic clay into a durable art object...Yanagi's book, The Unknown Craftsman, ignores most of the actual Art History of the Japanese people...
You will find some rant links on this page, but you will also find links to some of my artist statements over the years, links to promotional materials, NEWS of upcoming shows, as well as links to favorite artists, topics of discussion, and organizations.
It won't make up for missing the show, but in this section you will find images of some of the gallery views in a few different venues of my work. Also, there are show card announcements, posters, etc. reproduced for your viewing pleasure!
I was hesitant to include a number of my artist statements until I read Garth Clark's Shards and realized that not every piece of writing I author has to be wholely unique, but can be variations on what I have written previously. My writings, as you will see, evolve over time (similarly to the morphology of my current sculptural ewers) but however reworked still touch on some common themes inherent in my art in particular and ceramic art in general in the broader world of human artistic expression and culture.
On my link page, you will find ways to escape this bloody website ("And not a moment too soon!" I anticipate some of you shouting) although if you use certain browsers you can right click the link and open it in a new window or new tab. In any evemt, some of my favorite artists, significant organizations, and important resources will be found all with the click of your mouse!
Website design , images © 2005-2009 by Paul F. Morris