FUNCTIONAL JAZZ
Artist Statement
My work explores the relationship between restraint and improvisation. It is largely inspired by live jazz— improvisation within a set of standards that require the artist to harness a unique intuition for consonance, dissonance, rhythm, and rest.
I experience live jazz as a story playing out in front of me. The bassist plays off of the pianist and the pianist plays off the drums and the drums play off the horns. The music follows itself around the room like this. My focus on the art they are making is fluid. I can narrow in on each of them. Listening, I can hear each instrument one at a time– the steadiness of the base, the cry of the piano, the thwomp of the drums, and the whine of the horns. I feel the confidence and comfort in the uncertainty of what will happen next, wondering if the glances between musicians are subtle cues between strangers. Is this how the music is made? Then, as if by magic, my focus widens and I hear the whole story again.
My process of surface decoration harnesses an intuition similar to that of a jazz musician, I create with attention to balance: restraint and improvisation; consonance and dissonance; rhythm and rest. I tend toward simple, organic forms and create my own set of standards by limiting the variables within my work. With practiced hands, I pour glaze into familiar, yet ever surprising shapes, leaving much of the raw clay exposed. I carve into the slip making lines where shapes need to be interrupted. Sometimes at this point I burnish the surface with squiggles using the back of a teaspoon to add an extra sense of depth. After firing, I go in with a wood ash slurry to warm up the clay body and create flecks of melted ash. This serves as a sense of considered surprise within the work. Then I pour a single clear glaze to mirror the earlier pours of slip. Finally, I paint a few of a handful of motifs with a copper oxide in a final layer over everything.
The work that results invites the same fluid attention as live jazz. A viewer can narrow in — tracing a carved line, a fleck of melted ash, the edge where glaze meets bare clay — and then, as if by magic, widen back out to hear the whole story again. Like jazz standards played by strangers who have never met, it holds together through intuition, through practiced restraint, and through a confidence in what has been left open.
THE STORY OF FUNCTIONAL JAZZ
Unknowingly, I began the first generation of this project in the spring of 2024. I had finally returned to the potter’s wheel after an extended hiatus and was experimenting with surface decoration through layering colored slips, glaze pours, and carving designs into the slip. At the end of that semester, I saw a musicality worth pursuing in the body of work I produced.
The next fall, I took an independent study to explore these techniques and create dimension within the surface of my work. That time produced the second generation of Functional Jazz, which was quite consequential in moving my work forward. During a spirited critique with Hoyt Barringer, Ace Lehner, and Steve Buddington, we spoke about which pieces from the collection were the most successful and why— what made them work? As it turned out, it was restraint in surface design and space for visual rest so my designs could breathe.
The spring of 2025, I knew I needed to create larger forms to give my surface design space to breathe, so I began my journey of learning how to utilize the Korean technique of Onggi to create larger pots. My professor, Hoyt Barringer, had extensive experience working with this technique apprenticing under an Onggi legend— Toshiko Takaezu. I am so grateful to Hoyt and his wealth of knowledge on the method. Over the semester, he taught me to use the paddle and anvil to create bigger and bigger pots. We investigated my failures for lessons and celebrated my successes. The practice of Onggi takes patience, precision, and balance. I became obsessed.
With more room for my designs, I saw my work transformed and saw it opened up to new possibilities. By some happy accident, I stumbled into the work of Maria Martinez which inspired me to burnish lines into the surface of my pieces with the back of a spoon. This created more dimension in the naked clay body. Further, I kept refining my work by restraining my use of colored slip and glaze. Even more, I felt my intuition around carving strengthen and it became easier to know when to make a mark. Overall, I am incredibly proud of Generation III and am excited to implement the lessons it taught me into the next generation of work.
