Workable Earth November 21, 2009

clvngodess

Affordable functional and slightly dysfunctional art....

Todd Barry eats little chunks of clay while sculpting. That's the rumor, anyway. The story is that it all started as an innocent lick of the fingers, powdered with the white chunks of labor and artistry, which slowly developed over the dedicated hours into a full-fledged addiction to the stuff. It all adds up; his sculptures all have the look of the frantic, the frenetic- does this somehow relate to Todd's clay-jonesing? The want, the need? His bowls, ornate and joyful in their composition, do these represent how Todd feels after shoving gobs of dark, wet clay into his mouth? The release, the sweet giving in?

There' s a certain tension between Todd's pottery and his figures, as between rational thought and blind passion. He might be bi-polar or something. How do these sickly creatures, old men and tribal women, how do these characters interact with the landscape of bowls? Yet the unity is clearly there, existing within the creative stroke universal to Todd's work. They're two sides of the same ridiculous, imagination-gone-completely-berserk coin.

So maybe Todd does like to eat clay. Maybe he does mutter French to himself while sculpting, alone, for hours on end, in a dimly lit dungeon of a room. It all makes sense in the end. See it in his work.
                                                      - written by friend Teo Rivera-Dundas

Slightly more than a year ago, I decided to break a 12-year span where I produced no artwork. I decided to work with clay, as it was something I enjoyed previously and have always been drawn to.  Clay is earthy, tactile, and malleable.  It can be stretched, molded, twisted, painted and thrown…its versatility is amazing and ultimately, so alluring to me.  So, it is with these qualities and an intention to work with an open mind that I have approached this last year; playing, experimenting and working with the goal of just being in the present moment.  As my work has become more consistent and I have decided to make working in clay a lifelong pursuit, I present this section of work as a reflection of this past year. Year One in Clay.
--James McCue

All of the shapes and textures exhibited in this The Blue Stump and the other Tectonic Sculptures are formed by the same "tectonic forces" that shape the textures of the earth’s crust.  The application of these forces to sculptural ceramics is the focus of my artistic endeavor and the subject of my ceramics workshops.
--David Gilbaugh