Beginning Again
/By Jen Mills
Bisque-fired template forms
We’ve all been there at one point or another when a long vacation, an unexpected life event or other obligations, temporarily or longer-term takes us away from the studio. When you return to make work, it can sometimes be daunting: where should you begin again?
At this point in time, I do not have my own studio space. I am extremely fortunate to have a job teaching ceramics at a local community college and I have my hands in clay 5 days a week. While I love teaching and thrive on the interaction and exchange of ideas and watching minds open and possibilities grow, a dedicated studio practice needs time away from multi-tasking and serving other’s needs.
So, when I got an invitation from Deb Schwartzkopf to work in her studio at Rat City Studios, I jumped at the chance. But after a time away from my own studio space, the question arose: where to begin? It’s hard to follow advice, especially when it’s your own. It is humbling, and good for me, so I decided to follow my own advice that I give my students: you begin where you last left off. Whether it’s an idea you had 5 years ago, or one that’s a recent inspiration, you begin at the beginning, and you keep making. It’s the only way.
Colorado Rocky Mountains as inspiration
For my first project, I decided to continue my exploration with multiple forms mounted on the wall. The piece I started out making was inspired by the landscape I grew up around in Colorado – concave vessel forms based on the clouds I remembered from my childhood, and how they meet the mountains. The inside and the outside of the forms will be glazed differently, so that the work will always be changing as the viewer looks at the piece from various angles. I then decided to play. Using paper templates, I created forms using different drop molds that I plan to use to experiment with both arrangement, color and pattern. These two themes, repetition and pattern, appear frequently in my work. We all know that clay lends itself to this easily, ware boards fill with cups, bowls, plates etc. Our cupboards are full of stacked plates and cups side by side. The patterns that result are familiar – and I enjoy using this familiar place we all know as a starting point for my own work.
It was hard not to be critical of the work – but I had expressly set this time aside to make with no critic. Again, the advice I’ve given to many I had to follow myself: you can’t create and edit at the same time. The Zen Buddhist Shunryu Suzuki in his book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind says it best: “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.” I can always edit later. There’s a time for criticism and evaluation, but true exploration can’t exist simultaneously with an inner critic and be successful. I gave myself permission to have fun, create, and make some real flops.
During my 2 weeks at Rat City Studios I was surrounded by inspiration. It was an oasis of time and ideas: a thriving studio filled with work in all stages, 3 talented assistants, engaged students, a clean, organized and well-run studio, not to mention a gorgeous garden with chickens. It was here that I created without being critical. I moved forward inch by inch and created seeds that will one day grow into a new body of work. Pick up where you left off, put one step in front of the other, and the seeds will grow.
Detail of bisque fired Landscape forms
Greenware template forms in the studio
Greenware template forms in the studio
Artist at work in Rat City Studios
Artist Statement
I create objects and installations that explore the personal and familiar topographies from our daily lives. I use multiples to create patterns, and draw inspiration from the objects we use every day: bowls, vases and vessels. Forms repeat, patterns emerge, and conversations build through slight variations in form. The spaces between the shapes speak, and shadows become tangible. One moment begins, changes slightly, and echoes form and evolve. Repetition as exploration. The presence of absence.
This tendency to simplify and distill is embodied in the landscape of my childhood. Colorado is a land of opposites where the Great Plains rush up to meet the Rocky Mountains: when the snow falls, it hides what is underneath and makes all things equal, softer, and mysterious. This quiet sensibility is echoed in my work. Any action leaves a trace in the landscape, like Richard Long's line in the field, where the action is not witnessed, but the evidence is seen and remembered.
My approach to ceramics incorporates these dichotomies that have surrounded me my whole life. I choose to work with clay because of its ability to be soft and brittle, strong and fragile. Its associations with function are important to me. I often incorporate other media as well, and believe that the dialogue that ceramics can have with such diverse mediums as video, sound and light, make for a unique and powerful conversation.
Bio
Jen Mills has an MFA in Ceramics from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, and a BA in Religion and Art History from the University of Puget Sound. She is a recipient of an Artist Support Grant from Jack Straw Productions, and has been a visiting artist and lecturer at Wayne State University, Detroit, MI and Wichita State University. She currently teaches sculpture and ceramics at South Seattle College.
