Materiatrophy: Ceramics as a Site of Becoming

Through the alchemic process of forming and firing, ceramic objects register change while simultaneously transitioning toward permanence. Soft clay can inhabit an infinite number of forms, yet vitrification produces a state of fixedness that I find both unsettling and fascinating. As someone who understands identity as a perpetually evolving state shaped by experience, I am drawn to the opportunity that the medium presents to hold tension between fluidity and rigidity. While ceramic materials move toward permanence, human beings remain in a continual process of becoming.

My thesis project, Materiatrophy, investigates this tension through accumulation, fragmentation, multiple firings, and collaboration with material. Incorporating studio detritus, abandoned experiments, discarded clay, and fragments from previous works, I explore how atrophied materials can be revitalized through transformation. These remnants function as records of earlier states of existence. I reincorporate discarded pieces into new sculptures, allowing traces of the past to remain visible within the present form. Assemblages of vessels, piles of clay, melting glaze, and footed pedestals emerge through an intuitive process of construction and reconstruction. Through repeated cycles of accumulating and firing, the work explores how previous versions of ourselves persist within the ongoing formation of identity.

The vessel serves as my entry point into this inquiry. At the beginning of this year, I was attached to it as a functional form. Through experimentation, the vessel became less important as an object and more significant as a site of transformation. I am primarily drawn to its ability to hold, both physically and conceptually. Traditionally, it is used to contain physical substances. Within my work, it functions as a container for less tangible experiences: memory, uncertainty, growth, and presence. The vessel provides a physical structure through which internal human conditions can be externalized, offering stability from which I can depart. Rather than representing the human body directly, it operates a site for material itself to engage in a process of becoming.

This interest in material agency has led me toward questions surrounding spirituality and the presence of objects. opening up to alternative ways of working with ceramics, I became curious about the medium's ability to record experiences that resist direct representation. Learning about quartz inversion, the point in a firing where clay irreversibly transitions into ceramic opened my eyes to how technical processes could coincide with my conceptual interest in record. wondering how ceramics can record human presence, The work of Heidi Lau has been pivotal in shaping my understanding of what ceramics can conduit. Her Spirit Vessels suggest that ceramic forms can act as sites where memory and spirit reside in material. Architectural in their nature, Lau’s handbuilt totems have a tactile, visual density that pulls the viewer closer into each form. While I am still developing my own understanding of spirituality, I have been interested in how ceramic funerary objects, like urns and reliquaries, point toward a longstanding human desire to create homes for these intangible presences.

My process begins with handbuilt or wheel-thrown vessels that are made quickly and roughly—they serve as sketches to be developed further. During the greenware stage, they are altered and distorted as the forms begin to accumulate records of the environment in which they are made. Some are rolled across the studio floor, impressed with textures from nearby rocks, or embedded with fragments of broken ceramics. This stage remains intentionally playful and open-ended. Rather than pursuing a predetermined outcome, I allow discoveries to emerge through interaction with materials and conditions present in the studio.

A turning point in my year was when I started to allow myself to accept play as a methodology for discovery. By delaying the pressure to resolve and know forms immediately, I find excitement creating opportunities for unexpected relationships to develop. The most meaningful moments in my process arise when materials behave in ways that I could not have anticipated. These moments encourage me to respond rather than control.

Following the bisque-firing, the vessel occupies an especially exciting state. It has been permanently transformed, yet remains porous and receptive to new material. In addition to the application of glaze, I embed the bisque-fired forms into wet piles of reclaim clay. The fired vessel retains its structure without disintegrating, while the surrounding clay shrinks, cracks, and pulls away as it dries. This interaction establishes a new relationship between the vessel and its material origin, offering a unique aesthetic that would be difficult to achieve in the greenware stage. What was once a unified material body begins to reveal tensions between permanence and change.

Cracks play an important role within these formations. Traditionally, they are considered defects and signs of failure to be avoided or repaired. Within my work, they become evidence of material resistance and authorship. They reveal the limits of control and make visible the negotiation occurring between different states of matter. I embrace instability as a dignifying record of transformation. Fragments from previous works also find their way into new assemblages. Their relationships are explored through pattern and layering before being physically joined through glaze and additional firings. Earlier forms are not disposed of, they are carried forward into new circumstances.

This process mirrors my understanding of self-formation. Previous versions of ourselves remain present even as we change. as Experiences accumulate, parts of ourselves, like Old beliefs, aspirations, and memories continue to shape who we become. The fragments embedded within my sculptures function as material analogues for this process, persisting within new forms.

Surface development extends this investigation. Layers of underglaze, slip, mason stain, and glaze accumulate over multiple firings. the use of various application techniques—Dripping, drawing, brushing, spraying, dipping, sifting, striping, and dotting—create opportunities for materials to interact in unpredictable ways. While the technical knowledge of my materials informs my decisions, I intentionally create conditions where surprise can occur. I find particular excitement in moments when glazes run, pool, drip, or combine unexpectedly. These interactions reveal possibilities that exceed my original intentions.

The kiln and firing atmosphere play an active role within this process. Heat, gravity, and structural constraints influence the final outcome of each piece. This dynamic has led me to think of the kiln as a collaborator. Its contributions often expand my understanding of what the material is capable of recording. specific moments, like a drop of glaze frozen on the edge of a downward-facing rim, inspire me to explore how I can adjust firing schedules to respond to particular formal circumstances.

Additional firings further complicate the relationship between control and uncertainty. to create assemblage forms, Fully vitrified fragments are balanced precariously together before re-entering the kiln. Neither wet nor dried glazes serve as a reliable adhesive at this stage. Gravity becomes an active participant in determining what survives, shifts, or collapses. The composition of each form is finalized after the glaze has fluxed and begins to cool—unless I subject it to additional force or firings.

Arranged in groups of four on varying pedestal heights, the “finished” sculptures invite viewers to move slowly around them. Familiar vessel forms provide an accessible point of entry before giving way to the more ambiguous relationships between growth, decay, stability, and collapse. Dense accumulations of pattern, color, and texture encourage prolonged looking. Rather than presenting a single focal point, the work rewards sustained attention through small discoveries. A magical patch of melted glaze or an odd fragment embedded within a larger form may allow the viewer to feel engaged by a moment of self-discovery.

My practice is informed by several contemporary ceramic artists, all of which sculpturally abstract the vessel. I find the work made by these artists compelling due to their distinct relationships with ceramic materiality. The conceptual stakes of their practices are built upon strengths that the medium possesses. Francesca DiMattio's sculptural assemblages have influenced my understanding of ornament, fragmentation, and instability. Her work combines disparate references and materials into forms that are delicately detailed yet extremely tenuous. I am particularly drawn to DiMattio’s inquiry into the visual language of ornamentation, especially as the work aesthetically explores fragmentation and opposing forces through material presence.

The experimental processes of Masaomi Yasunaga have also influenced my approach to material inquiry. His unconventional use of rock, glass, and metal in relation to raw clay materials demonstrates how the process itself can generate conceptual meaning. Allowing material behavior to physically shape the work, he excavates forms made of glaze that were fired in beds of clay as if they are archaeological relics. Yasunaga’s practice has encouraged me to leverage points of the ceramic process where material agency can contribute directly to form and meaning.

I am interested in developing more structure and conceptual clarity to ground my experimental, evolving process. Kathy Butterly's sustained engagement with the same slip-cast cup form offers an important model, as her commitment demonstrates how limitations can deepen inquiry. My thesis show was installed just as I was discovering a new way of working, so I look forward to developing more intimacy with material chemistry and alchemy. I have started to explore this from a place of play, as opposed to science, layering many glazes, incorporating found rocks and glass, and using traditional ceramic materials at improper stages. Engaging in a curious, childlike approach to creating is an important part of my practice to protect. However, for the purposes of reproducibility and deeper aesthetic explorations, I would love to gain more technical expertise here. glaze chemistry and foreign materials have started to make their way into work, but a dedicated inquiry could benefit

Although I began the year without an intention to create sculptural work, following my curiosity beyond familiar methods transformed both my practice and my relationship to ceramics. I discovered that the medium offers more than a means of producing objects; it provides a process to externalize the intangible experiences of transformation. By allowing previous forms to remain embedded within new ones, Materiatrophy reflects a belief that growth does not require abandoning the past. Becoming emerges through the continual accumulation and reconfiguration of what already exists. It is a process of carrying previous states forward while remaining open to what might emerge next.

Bibliography

Deboer, Kendall. “Kathy Butterly by Kendall Deboer.” Bomb Magazine, 23 Feb. 2023. https://bombmagazine.org/articles/2023/02/27/erotics-power-pearls-and-intuition-kathy-butterly-interviewed/

Kendall Deboer’s interview with Kathy Butterly offers insight into the artist’s relationship with her work, detailing how she makes creative decisions and positions herself as a sculptural ceramist. The interview was conducted as Butterly’s show Kathy Butterly: Out of One, many / Headscapes was on view at the Portland Museum of Art in Maine in 2023. Butterly discusses how various influences or imparted associations–color, painting, emotions, ceramic materiality, ready-mades, gender, decoration, motherhood, and more–shape her work. This interview reveals how a contemporary ceramic artist is engaging with a process and themes that are burgeoning in my practice.

Feldman, Edmund Burke. Becoming Human through Art: Aesthetic Experience in the School. National Art Education Association, 1997.

Edmund Burke Feldman’s book describes the transformative nature that art has on human development. While the book is written through the perspective of the role of art in education systems, Feldman explains how innate human instincts are encouraged to be expressed. This book helped me unlearn many of the beliefs that I had about art-making, supporting a deeper inquiry into the ways that I can leverage the process to learn about myself. He discusses concepts such as our persistence to work materials beyond the point of functionality, the fragmentation of self that occurs in adolescence, and how artistic problem-solving requires risk-taking.

“Groundbreaking Exhibition Explores Global Trend of Transforming Ordinary Mass-Produced Objects into One-Of-A-Kind Works of Art.” Museum of Arts and Design, September 18, 2008. https://madmuseum.org/press/releases/second-lives-remixing-ordinary.

The exhibition, Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary, highlights the artistic reuse of discarded materials at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York. Artists and designers explore how mass-produced objects can live a second life through the format of sculpture. In a press release about the event, Chief Curator David Revere McFadden states that the artists “are working in ways that resist categorization and that underscore a breakdown in the hierarchy that has traditionally separated art, craft, and design.” The discourse that this exhibition instigates revolves around themes present in my work, as I question how discarded and overlooked studio materials can take on new identities through transformative creative processes.

Lynn, Martha Drexler. American Studio Ceramics: Innovation and Identity, 1940 to 1979. Yale University Press, 2015.

The book American Studio Ceramics: Innovation and Identity, 1940-1979 details the national conditions that allowed for the medium to expand outside of craft into the realm of fine arts. Outlined by decade are the forces–individuals, societal shifts, technological advancements–that shaped the movement. I am engaging with my material surroundings, the studio, as a core part of my practice. To understand where my work is contextually situated, it is imperative to be familiar with how the field of contemporary, studio-based ceramics has been built and continues to operate.

Schaffner, Ingrid, Jenelle Porter, and Glenn Adamson. “Sloppy Seconds: The Strange Return of Clay.” Essay. In Dirt on Delight: Impulses That Form Clay. Philadelphia: Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, 2009. 

The essay Sloppy Seconds by Glenn Adamson recounts how artists have utilized clay as a medium for experimentation and exploration since the 1950s. He cites the 1950s as a point where artists were interested in discovery, finding new forms and modes of expression. The allure of the material is discussed as its historic association with craft, opposed to fine art, offered artists the ability to quickly and cheaply register their impulses. It was thought of as secondary to a primary practice, which gave way for radical experimentation. Adamson frames this growing phenomenon through artists that have been influential to my practice, like Peter Volkous, Kathy Butterly, and Nicole Cherubini. Despite a saturated market, he notes that the seductive, raw materiality of clay still attracts us to bestow form through it. This encourages me to continue developing a practice where materiality is centered through its ability to record. 

Schrei, Joshua, host. “Universe Adorned: Ornaments in Culture, Cosmos, and Consciousness.” The Emerald, season 1, episode 74, Apple Podcasts, January 23, 2023.

This podcast episode explores the human desire to adorn and ornament, recontextualizing the impulse as a deeply ingrained survival tool rather than superfluousness. Schrei describes adornment as an enhancement and patterning of consciousness, arguing that it is essential to the human condition. Through a sustained practice, I have recognized a strong impulse to ornament and pattern the surfaces of my work. An object does not feel complete, or of my making, without at least a small moment of adornment or awe. This episode challenges me to inquire deeper and expand upon the conceptual meaning behind this impulse, providing an alternative framework to ground the necessity of ornament within.

Vaughan, Christopher, and Stuart Brown. Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul. Avery, 2014.

Vaughan and Brown’s book outlines the benefits of playing as a method to agitate new ways of thinking. They explain how an active engagement with it allows new thoughts and behaviors to free us from established patterns. As my direction shifted numerous times throughout the year and I was struggling to feel connected to the work I was making, this book helped validate my desire to play with the materials I had on hand. The authors talk about the integration of work and play, which changed the way I thought about my practice. I carved out time to explore my surroundings and brought objects that were not made by me into my space. Responding to and interacting with new forms took the pressure off of spawning something that felt right, allowing me to notice the relationships and themes that I was drawn to explore.