PODS | 50 RAKU CERAMIC MIDFIRE PIECES IN LINEN SACKS
SANTA FE COMMUNITY GALLERY | JURIED CSArt, EDITION OF 50

PODS | PROJECT DESCRIPTION

As a bee-keeper, I am interested in pollination. As a gardener, I am interested in seeds. As a human, I am interested in the environment. As an artist, I love organic forms.

Clay is a time-based, alchemical, medium. This act of making forms from earth has an ancient lineage almost as old as our opposing thumb. Making organic forms from earth makes perfect sense to me. They seem to emerge from the clay calling to be formed into the containers of life; of seed.

In thinking about a project for this art “CSA” I thought about the various CSA’s I have supported over the years and what it meant to me to support agriculture in this way - to literally provide the “seed” money to the farm that will grow your food.  I also thought about the containers of seeds.; The pods, the peas, the beans, the flowers that contain or contained the genetics of the next generation. Seeds have been stored for thousands of years to be planted and successfully grown. The diversity of forms that contain such unique and complex variations of shape and form never cease to inspire awe in me. Little patterns with double helixes of DNA that determine the endless variations of the next generation.

Using the Japanese technique of raku oxidation to glaze and fire these forms I mean to emphasize the carbonized black finish and make the correlation between carbon and all life forms – carbon and DNA coding. 

In these fragile times I wish to point to the necessity and beauty of diversity, the need for seed saving and the fragility of life especially in the midst of climate change. Each thumbprint, each seed pod, each pant is entirely unique and without this diversity and complexity our systems and cycles and interlocking interdependencies between all life forms can’t thrive. Together these 50 pieces represent the possibilities of the future- seeds that have been sewn and are sprouting before you and seeds that will be held in this clay for hundreds of years to come.