FIGURATIVE CERAMIC ARTIST
My work in clay has always been about seeking to understand my place in the world. With clay I explore my secrets, dreams, fears, hopes, and my questions. Using animal and figural images, I tell stories about being alone and together, about yearning for both solitude and connection, about dreaming and waiting, and about hoping for community.
The three-dimensionality of clay enables me to create real spaces within and outside of which I can tell these stories. These stories float between and around the figures, charging the spaces with energy and unresolved tension.
My most recent figurative work emerges from my retirement and move to a small and vibrant town in Vermont and to a state full of energized people working together to build caring communities. I continue the yearnings for human connections and for a vibrant community as an antidote for all the pain and alienation in the present world. My work continues to be about waiting, hoping, yearning to find that community. I am making archetypal figures with slabs of clay. I am making hollow forms that continue to imply tangible interior space where the mystery and unanswered questions reside. I am exploring polarities such as interior and exterior, solitude and community. I use juxtapositions of scale to enliven and energize my forms and to invite questions. I continue to tell stories through these human forms about my struggle for understanding my place in the world.
Susan Wilson
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