DRS Pottery
LLC
Artist Statement
My earliest memories of peace and community are centered around my family dinner table. It was ritualistic we would talk about our days and important issues and situations concerning the day. At the head of the table my Father would sit presiding over this sacred gathering my mother to his right presenting a calm unified front of balance. This practice was mirrored across extended family. Faint details of my Grandmother and my Aunts tables lined with different ceramic and glass serving dishes amassed over a lifetime to nourish our family. All were welcome and there was always a place at the table.
Moving between the worlds of ritualistic family gatherings and being a child in the Eighties bombarded with imagery from the graphics on skateboard decks, album covers from my favorite bands, and the birth of MTV, this content would create a vivid and surreal surface for my young eyes to get lost in. Neon’s and dark tones gave way to burst of vibrant warm tones charging out amidst the misdirection and the irreverent chaos of the times. Subject matters where glossed over and distorted to reflect an attitude of enjoyment of the excesses in life.
My practice is centered on the functional through familial utilitarian vessels from my memories. The surface is the translation of my own life and the pandemonium that I am immersed in when away from the table. By using aggressive brush strokes of muddy colors and the layering of commercial transfers I am able to create a reoccurring theme of chaos. I seek to create a visual tension on the surface of a vessel meant for physical and spiritual nourishment. I am driven by a sense of duty to one and other. While the vessels duty in its purity is meant to serve and to provide. The surfaces are contributing to the dialog around the table enhancing the gathering with psychological feeding of the surrounding chaotic world wrapped in a commercial language.