Clarissa Callesen
Sculptor, installation artist, instructor

ARTIST STATEMENT

​

Clay is alchemy at work; the transformation from literal earth to solid sculpture. We tend to think of fired pottery as a static hard substance. Stoneware describes not only the kind of clay I use but also the stone like nature we associate with pottery. In its wet state clay is soft and malleable with the ability to flex and drape in fluid shapes. An artistic rendering of a stone represents the origins of the material used to create the sculpture in an endless creative circle.

In Pliable Ore, I explore clay’s ability to mimic the textures of natural objects. It takes on the texture of a stone, the shape of an old bone, or the softness of fabric. There is trickery involved in the sculptures. Is that a real bone or a ceramic bone? Is that clay or is that fabric?  What is real in our perceptions?

I am interested in the beauty of decay and the textures that are created by the eroding of an object, the evidence of time passing etched into the cracks and crevices of hard stone, or the quick disintegration of a dying flower turning to dust. I am looking to the discarded to find overlooked meaning and joy.