Liz McCarthy

An exploration of 20th and 21st century conceptual ceramic vessels focusing on the ways in which artists harness the rich history of ceramic production for contemporary purposes. The course will cover ideas of utility, domesticity, decorativeness, and ritual; it will explore relationships between industrial and digital mass production and handcraft; it will examine vessels as metaphors for the body, as carriers of culturally specific meaning, and as expressions of personal and political identity.
We will begin our examination of the conceptual vessel with an overview of ceramic history from the Arts and Crafts Movement through to the advent of what Anne Wilson dubbed ?Sloppy Craft.? We will consider famous 20th century works such as Duchamp?s Fountain, Meret Oppenheim's Object, and Judy Chicago?s Dinner Party, as well as canonical ceramics figures such as George Ohr, Peter Voulkos, Robert Arneson, Kathy Butterly, Betty Woodman, Viola Frey, and Beatrice Wood. Other artists will include: Ai Weiwei, Roberto Lugo, Grayson Perry, Diego Romero, Arlene Shechet, Francesca Dimattio, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Kukuli Velarde, Ann Agee, Liu Jianhua, Milena Muzquiz, Laurent Craste, Ehren Tool, Julie Green, and many others.

Readings will include excerpts from Glenn Adamson?s Thinking Through Craft and The Craft Reader, Elaine Cheasley Paterson and Susan Surette?s Sloppy Craft: Postdisciplinarity and the Crafts, and Moira Vincentelli?s Women and Ceramics: Gendered Vessels.

With a research intensive focus on the development of concepts, students will produce two vessel-based projects by any combination of hand building, wheel throwing, slip casting, 3d printing, and/or found object manipulation. In addition, students will prepare one 10-15 minute presentation on either a specific culture?s ceramic production or on a contemporary artist producing conceptual ceramic vessels.

This class considers how identity performativity and performance relate to clay as a thematic material. We will look at artworks that subvert sexual and gender normativity, incorporate intersectional concerns, and test human bodies' relationship with clay. The class exercises these themes through traditional clay strategies such as developing a functional and decorative series and building sculptural form. will also explore the medium with methods of performance, considering how sculptural objects change as influenced by a human body and environmental context.