Female War I Am Pottery 01 2015 Direct

"Female War I Am Pottery" was a declaration that to make is to resist. The act of shaping clay—pressing, hollowing, firing—became testimony. Pottery, often relegated to the sphere of craft and the domestic, was weaponized through care: its surfaces told stories, its forms held memory. In that January, the pieces did not merely stand on pedestals; they held court, demanded reckoning, and quietly, insistently, reframed what it means to be a maker who has known battle.

Artists in the show took materials as language. Reclaimed clay from demolished kitchens carried stories of meals and arguments; slip cast pieces borrowed molds from domestic ceramics, then distorted them so a teacup became a helmet or a milk jug grew a slit like a mouth. Text appeared as incised lines—snatches of overheard phrases, names, the word "enough" repeated until it dissolved into texture. Some pieces incorporated metal: wire sutures sealing a fractured rim, rivets holding together a rim like armor. Others embraced fragility—paper-thin porcelain stretched so light it trembled beside a rough, unglazed bowl heavy with damp. female war i am pottery 01 2015

There was a ritual quality to the installation. The room smelled of kiln smoke and resin; low hums of recorded voices—confessions and lullabies—threaded through the space. Visitors were given small clay tokens to place by works that resonated, creating a communal map of empathy and protest. A centerpiece—a large, cracked amphora—bore a stitched canvas band with names of women lost or overlooked in wars both literal and structural: labor strikes, caregiving burdens, migrations. It read like a monument that refuses singular heroism and instead honors the cumulative endurance of many. "Female War I Am Pottery" was a declaration