Sculpture- Artist Statement

    “In my unfired clay installations, the dusty grey objects are truly vulnerable to time.  Like the body, they sweat, bleed, feed scratch, pump, break down, retain and transform.

    Two discarded baskets in a pond of oil germinate fourteen-foot bonsai viscera in Pond with Baskets.  Their esophageal and bulbous growths form a tightly controlled Japanese flower arrangement.  Next to this, a huddle of butterflies willingly tenants a stack of storm windows, as faint scratching sounds mingle with whispered notes from a small town newspaper (Population 163).   In Bone Dry, a bed frame cast entirely out of unfired clay defiantly stands perspiring against the wall, graced by delicate strings, as the other frame appears to suck it dry.  Linger for My Sister is about a near death state when someone is waiting to see a missing relative before they pass on.  Two porcelain pillows peacefully glow where the head used to lay, as the viewer controls the incessant churning of the slip pump. 

    Subjected to faint yet ceaseless erosion, all these works exhibit unexpected strength, perseverance, and resistance.”

-Jen Richardson-Greene, 2009