Material Witness

This exhibition explores the relationships these artists have with materials, storytelling, cultural history, history of production, professional practice, and personal histories; all while holding traditional notions of clay and textile production at arm’s length. Clay and fiber are among the first materials alongside flint and stone used to fashion the earliest instruments and crude tools to assist humans with basic chores. Over time more sophisticated techniques were developed for processing these materials, as well as design improvements for function, ornamentation, and decorative motifs shaping identity. Long since these humble beginnings the materials have continued this path, with ever more sophisticated techniques for production and ornamentation while still often rooted in function and purpose. These artists have deliberately sought to find and explore new approaches and applications for these historied materials and techniques. This approach leverages and honors the past, while also breaking from the traditional notions of textile and clay fabrication and use. The works in this exhibition seek to invert these practices by focusing on the communicative aspects while subverting the utilitarian purposes. These artists remain tenuously tethered to traditional production but have individually sought to free themselves of expectation.