Living through these harrowing times can feel like being lost at sea — seemingly endless tumult with no end in sight. For show curator and Hecho a Mano co-director Martha Traer, the medium of ceramics offers a point of stability and solace amid the chaos. In a July group exhibition at Hecho a Mano, Traer brings together artists from the Southwest and beyond to explore the medium’s potential to ground viewers in individual and collective structures.
The resulting show is titled Dry Land, not only as a reference to the nature of the medium itself, but also to evoke an idea of safety and rest. “When sailors are out at sea they often are in search of dry land,” Traer says. “I am not a sailor, but over the past few years there seems to be a general sense that we are in fact lost at sea — and this show, I am hoping, provides some respite from that.”
The artists Traer has chosen to bring together for the show draw from diverse backgrounds and practices, but share a sense of whimsy and tongue-in-cheek humor, executing formidable structural feats in ways that appear effortless. Ceramic artist and architect Janny Baek creates cloudlike, anthropomorphic structures that share a similar joyful and buoyant color palette as figurative ceramicist Sara Swink’s small-scale stoneware animal figures. Holly Curcio creates both narrative ceramic sculptures and comics, and Lisa Smith and her works seem to exist in a similar world as ceramic sculptor Monica Van den Dool's — both with a darker, yet still whimsical bent. "Their storytelling is found in tones found in the natural world and their work seems to be sprouting from it,” Traer observes. “The works for the most part are figurative and if they aren’t specifically figurative they are breathing and existing — each piece of work holds a story, some more complex or obvious than others, but they all ask to be viewed with the same care and attention.”
Each artist imbues their work with an deep tactile sensibility, and each presents a unique perspective on themes of uncertainty and respite.
For example, Sara Swink's hand-built sculptural work asks viewers to test the limits of their instincts toward whom and what to trust. Each of her human and animal figures has its own idiosyncratic personality — the dangerous yet mischievous alligator; the sturdy, reliable yet puckish horse. Her hand-built sculptural work offers fragments of narrative, often with a humorous edge. Her inspiration is often built up like a collage, layering, recombining and developing ideas both on paper and in clay. " I like to riff and doodle, one idea leading to another, in an endless progression of a personal narrative that reflects and feeds my inner life," Swink writes.
Lisa Smith’s clay beings share a similar ethos: each is unique, curious and magical, evoking a joyful gratitude borne of the knowledge that we are part of a larger mystery. “In this body of work, I am playing with the dreamlike dance between humans, spirits, and the sacred beauty of the world,” Smith says. Each piece is hand built, coil by coil, and then elaborately glazed in a painterly style, mixing and layering dozens of glazes in ever changing combinations. Smith’s process is intuitive, leaving lots of room for creative surprise, inspiration, and serendipity. As Smith points out, “The rich layers of color aren't revealed until the kiln has its say; ceramics has mystery built right into the process of making!”
Her kinetic relationship with the medium of clay speaks to the show’s theme of grounding in sensory experience: “I feel this connection with the earth every time I grab a chunk of moist clay and begin sculpting,” the artist says. “I love watching a new form take shape beneath my hands — even after 40 years of working with clay, the creative process still delights me.”
In turbulent times, it’s easy to lose sight of the things that ground and unite us as people. Together, this group of artists offer a playful, reflective space in which to reconnect with the physical world and seek the solace of terra firma.