Nancy McNary Smith, Pittsburgh, PA
Bowls and vessels are quintessentially domestic. For millennia we humans have used them to store and serve food and drink, to mix wine, to wash ourselves. A bowl or vessel made today inevitably imitates, salutes, transforms, and/or rebels against what past bowls and vessels have been.
These eggshell-thin vessels were not made for traditional domestic use; their “content” is expressive. Delicate but durable, they aim to examine, explore, and question. For several years I have been investigating female identity, mine in particular, through images—fragmenting them, juxtaposing them, overlaying them—on vessels, with their trail of metaphoric associations.
In the process I have asked myself, where do the parts of my identity come from? Baked in? Created? Culled from the culture? Copied from the past? Does identity accrue over years? Do I constantly shed shards of self and cast on new ones? What part of becoming is trying on? How much is stripping off?
Making helps me feel, remember, and sometimes know. And the creative company of the remarkable women in my atelier—former students now clay artists—has fed my fire.
artist web site:
http://www.nancymcnarysmith.com/
These eggshell-thin vessels were not made for traditional domestic use; their “content” is expressive. Delicate but durable, they aim to examine, explore, and question. For several years I have been investigating female identity, mine in particular, through images—fragmenting them, juxtaposing them, overlaying them—on vessels, with their trail of metaphoric associations.
In the process I have asked myself, where do the parts of my identity come from? Baked in? Created? Culled from the culture? Copied from the past? Does identity accrue over years? Do I constantly shed shards of self and cast on new ones? What part of becoming is trying on? How much is stripping off?
Making helps me feel, remember, and sometimes know. And the creative company of the remarkable women in my atelier—former students now clay artists—has fed my fire.
artist web site:
http://www.nancymcnarysmith.com/