Artaxis Conversations – Project: Cup

Project: Cup visited artist, Twiggy Cercy, in the beautiful small town of Oskaloosa, KS at their home and studio. Twiggy's work takes on many forms – from ceramic sculpture and functional pottery, to wearables and performance.

During our studio visit and conversation, Twiggy offered: “What if I just started doing all the things that people tell me I couldn't do?…It started turning into these weird amalgamations of forms and colors and patterns and texture that started to tell a story about the intervention of myself and the society that I was raised in…It definitely feels like I have the power in this situation to re-tell that story. I still try to intervene with the way that I present my body because I think a lot about my queer body when I'm making work. Being a fat, queer person is distinctly different than being any other type of queer person in this society. “

Project: Cup visited the studio of KC Urban Potters founding member,  and Artaxis member, Paul Donnelly for an extra-special studio visit. Pictured here are some images of Paul in his studio (shared with fellow artists, Rain Harris and Kate Schroeder) in Midtown, Kansas City. Paul brought a special cup made by Lee Rexrode to talk about.

He explains: “This is the first piece of functional pottery that I ever owned. I won this. It was part of a Christmas raffle that Lee Rexrode, my teacher, would have at his house. At the time, I wasn’t that tuned into making functional pots…..This cup, in so many ways, just really inspired me to think about utility and function and the ideas of the handmade and all of these really beautiful things that a cup can encompass.

For our next studio visit, Project: Cup visited Momoko Usami-Carter (@momoumomo) at her studio and home outside of Maryville, MO, and Veronika Watkins (@vlwatkinspottery) at her studio at Northwest Missouri State University.

Veronica is a professor, wife and mother of three. She lives on a 100-acre cattle ranch. Her awareness of the way these different aspects of her life (place, family, food, and community) come together in the ceramics studio and with her body of work were central to our conversation.

Momoko, her husband @joshuawcotter, their two kids, and two goats, live on family land in a rural area. We spent time walking the path from the studio that she walks to gather inspiration (and objects!) for her work and discussing the risks, rewards, and reasons for making sculptural and functional work.

Momoko says: “The functional piece is very good for bringing the art into the daily life. I think it is important to have a human touch to everything we do.Now, I have two kids and I have to worry about their future. Everything I make is kind of a statement for everybody to think about and I wish for them to have a better world.”

This studio visit took us to the renovated studio of @kylastrid to speak with her and her husband, Louis Wigen-Toccalino. Their first conversation was an argument about cups (🥰). For years Kyla produced cups for Decade. Louis is now the owner/baker/chef/mastermind behind The Cellar Door in Lawrence, KS @cellar.door.cafe.

Kyla says: “If you want to learn about your cups and what their lifespan will be, put them in a commercial setting. It’s condensing a lot of use into a short time. With each series I made I learned so much.”

Louis says: “It’s one thing to have 4 cups at home that are precious, but we go through 30 of them every hour…. It’s a stress test of a different sort. It was a challenge, but it was worth it. It elevated our product to be more than just another latte.”

For this episode, we ventured to in the home studio of Natasha Hovey and to Charlotte Street residency studios to visit with Elaine Buss (@elainebuss). These two powerhouses team up for a thoughtful conversation on the body and ceramic process.

Natasha (@natashahovey) dives deep into research – both with material and content. Her forms are often derived from data sets and methods of data visualization. Tasha says “my practice and research of the human physiology are often approached simultaneously utilizing metaphorical associations and microscopic imagery that seeks to make sense of my own being at a genetic level.”

Elaine’s work explores ambiguity and the nondescript, specifically in relation to the sensory, ineffable, and intangible experience of inhabiting a human body. Her inspirations include: anthropological forms, ancient grinding stones and/or the qualities of stone, and sacred architecture.

Project: Cup snuck into the studio of Sunyoung Park! Sunyoung’s early life and education was in Korea. There, historical ceramic objects were part of the everyday and an interest in art shaped her education. Sunyoung discusses the process for reimagining everyday inspirations in her work and the transitions that she experienced as an international student and artist in residence. We laughed so much during this conversation – here are a few snippets (sans laughter) from Sunyoung:

“Sometimes, I find myself lost in surreal thoughts while working with clay. Initially, my thoughts are grounded in reality, but they eventually transform into bizarre fantasies. My creative process involves capturing a few items in my memory or taking pictures, followed by sketching in my idea book and creating a three-dimensional sculpture. Currently, I am working on integrating mixed media with my ceramic sculptures to establish a cohesive conversation between the contrasting media.”

For the grand finale of the Project: Cup’s Studio Visit series, we got a sneak peak into the home studio of potter and painter, Samuel Johnson. Sam’s studio practice is rooted in the thoughtful creation of functional vessels. He throws and hand builds on a low-momentum kick wheel, which engages the body in a different way than weighted kick wheels or electric wheels. The rhythm of this style of throwing, including the sensitivity to pressure and speed, is a delight to witness.

In Sam’s words: “There was a different kind of philosophy embedded in the different places that I worked at early in my career – the St. Johns Pottery in Minnesota, the Denmark Design School in Copenhagen, and at the studio of Koie Ryoji. I found that these different experiences and perspectives led me to thinking about the essence of form….In time, I started to think about the creative process as relating the nature of materials to the nature of self, to the intellect. I wondered what it would be like to pair together 3 elements: clay as a natural material, fire in its raw state and me as a person in my own humanity. I wanted to know what that meant in terms of making things that had a theoretical, mathematical type of precision and was also full of emotional impulses.”