Alleghany Meadows . Artist Statement

catalog artist statement   resume biography

09-007-01

My investigation is a search for beauty. It is an active search for emotion, feeling, content and form in objects for the home. My work is intimately connected through size, form and surface to the human body, to culinary rituals, to history and to our culture. I wish to make work which inspires creative decisions in actions such as preparing a soup or arranging a moment for tea.

I am fascinated by ways which my work can effect time and experience. Perception of the world is an evolving process directly linked to experience. We experience the world through our senses. Memory and my understanding of memory are connected to the sensuous experiences I have with material objects.  A new teapot becomes familiar as I learn its subtleties, the pace and rhythm with which it pours, its weight and balance when full. Each experience of having tea engages my senses. Through time and use, the teapot acquires a patina of memory which reflects back these experiences.

Repetition and rhythm in my studio process are similar to autumn leaves on the forest floor, tracks of a bird in wet sand, ice crystals on a frozen stream — such patterns, although composed of repetitive elements, continually change without exactly repeating themselves. I am fascinated by the physical responsiveness of porcelain to my touch, by the plasticity of lines, and the transformation from fluid to solid. The salt firing process adds fluidity to glazes, sliding the concentration of glaze from edges and creating pools on raised areas of the forms.