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Michelle Matthews

Sculpted Feb 9 â€“ Mar 25, 2018

“Limited Engagement: Michelle Matthews’ Raw Clay” Perry A. Price Executive Director Houston Center for Contemporary Craft The new work of Houston ceramist Michelle Matthews for the Mary E. Bawden Sculpture Garden of Lawndale is only temporary. Museums and galleries toss about the modifiers “temporary” and “permanent” liberally; “temporary exhibition” say, or “permanent collection.” Yet when this show is scheduled to close, it is unknown what, if anything, will be left. For the first time in her career, Matthews has created a site-specific installation of a group of unfired clay forms, and the result, or the longevity, is undetermined. These series of monumental, unfired pieces provide the viewer an experience of time on a geologic scale, untied to our short, metabolic lifespans. Built layer by layer from recycled clays, they mimic the accumulation of detritus into sedimentary rock. And, like the roadcuttings made in the landscape that expose layers within, Matthews’ gestural slashes and cuts that help shape these upright forms reveal the particulars of the many incursions and colored clay bodies from which they are composed. When fired in a kiln, the metamorphic transformation of clay allows it to persevere for centuries--spotting 2

ceramic potsherds is a common method for determining archeological dig sites and are used to help develop site chronology thanks to the resistance of fired clay to weather or decay. As installed in Lawndale’s sculpture garden and exposed to the light, wind, and rain, Matthews’ raw clay forms will instead erode over the course of the exhibition. Dried in the sun, the lightest clay dust will be carried away by the wind as the heavier particles succumb to gravity loosened by humidity and rain. In her use of terra cruda, Matthews tests our assumptions of the appropriate uses of clay as material. In its raw state, as any gardener in Houston can attest, clay bears little resemblance to the smooth, refined, homogenous material we commonly see in the studio. Matthews uses a range of clays along with various additional impurities recycled from other artists, schools, and studios from the region. If fired, the mix of clay bodies would be unstable and unpredictable, each vitrifying at different temperatures and rates. Left raw, the layering of different clays allows for the subtlety of clay textures, colors, and densities to be explored, differences that will be further delineated once the pieces begin to degrade. This embrace of impermanence in clay sculpture is perhaps the most unsettling feature of these pieces. The ceramics to

which we are accustomed in the crockery of our everyday life or that have survived millennia are fired. Certainly, ephemeral works of art are not uncommon, as is sculpture made from materials in what can be considered as close to their natural state. Iconic works of land art such as Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty or the truly ephemeral compositions of Andy Goldsworthy are two familiar examples. Nor is terra cruda so exotic a treatment of clay, and currently enjoys somewhat of a resurgence of interest on the heels of ceramic’s “rediscovery” by the contemporary art marketplace. Yet, we still--irrationally perhaps--expect the investment of labor in this material to result in tangible, enduring products, a hold-over from clay’s strictly utilitarian past use.

consideration of the interior size of the available kiln, of the compatibility of the clay from which it is composed, the interaction of glaze on the surface with the form beneath, or even its ability to survive the process. A new manner of working with clay is revealed instead, one that values labor above product to the point which the final object, or its installation, seems superfluous. By the time they are installed, the pieces will begin their second phase of life, drying and eroding toward entropy. That labor--their creation in a small studio off of Bellaire Boulevard backed by a small pasture complete with horses in an inexplicable anywhere-butHouston arrangement--is hidden from the viewer, a first life of the object that can only be guessed at by examining the rapidly disappearing record preserved in the works.

Raw clay removes from consideration the embodied material knowledge of ceramics, the empirical and the intuitive understanding of the material, of how it is to be worked, constructed, and finally rendered permanent through firing. Opting not to fire the work, too, removes any thought of glaze or other surface treatment from the work. In addition to color and texture, minute decisions of the object’s making is revealed, from the hard-edged cut through layers of clay by a knife or wire to the soft fingerprint left by Matthews’ hand. Here each form may be built without

The objects themselves, as they wilt in the elements, obscure and reveal in equal measure the means of their production, softening and obscuring the marks of their shaping while revealing their layerby-layer accumulation and growth. When complete, concluding inevitably with their eventual erosion and destruction, the clay will return to the earth, mingling with the black gumbo clay soil of Houston and leaving behind for the viewer only a minute experience of the entropy of eternity.

Michelle Matthews Sculpted, 2017 Site specific installation Raw ceramic materials Dimensions variable

Michelle Matthews, born in New Jersey, has called Houston home since 1981. She received her ceramic education at the MFAH Glassell School of Art, completing the Glassell’s BLOCK program in 2016. Matthews’ ceramic sculptures reflect her love of processes, those found in geological development and those discovered while working in clay. Her work has been exhibited in solo shows at Galeria Regina, Houston, TX in 2015 and 2016, as well as many group exhibits at Coconino Center for the Arts, Flagstaff, AZ; LH Horton Jr. Gallery, Stockton, CA; and at the Baltimore Clayworks, Baltimore, MD. Currently, she is curating Collective Transference: An Exhibit of Houston Area Ceramic Artists, a ceramic exhibit on view at the Art Gallery at Houston Community College Central Campus January 23 - February 17, 2018.

Perry A. Price is Executive Director of Houston Center for Contemporary Craft in Houston, Texas. Price received a BA in the History of Art from the Johns Hopkins University and an MA in Museum Studies from the Cooperstown Graduate Program in Museum Studies, State University of New York Oneonta and the New York State Historical Association. Prior to joining the HCCC, he served as director of education for the American Craft Council in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he was responsible for developing and presenting programming and outreach providing thought leadership and cultivating critical thinking on the field of contemporary craft. He previously served as curator of exhibitions and collections for Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Massachusetts, where he developed and oversaw all aspects of the New England craft museum’s exhibitions and collections initiatives. He is a scholar of contemporary studio craft, material culture, decorative arts, and design.

Acknowledgements Thanks for the support of Bill Matthews, Joe Havel, Perry Price, Stephanie Mitchell, Lauren Lohman, Emily Fens, Jane Honovich, and Jeff Forster. Special thanks to those who donated their reclaimed clay: Mary Aldrich, Janice Crow, Karen Cruce, Libby DeLyria, Madge Donaldson, Karen Fiscus, Nell Gottlieb, Sony Hartley, Kamila Szczesna, Lisa Kelley, Doni Langlois, Renee LeBlanc, Lilly Lerner, Ron Loyd, David McClain, Kim Millspaugh, Tom Perry, Anne Steacy, Shiyuan Xu, Jodi Walsh, JoAnn William, Cynthia Wisener, and the clay departments of Houston Baptist University, The Glassell School of Art, and San Jacinto College. 5

Michelle Matthews, Sculpted (studio view), 2017, Photo by Lauren Lohman

Major support for Lawndale Art Center programming is provided by The Brown Foundation, Inc., the John R. Eckel, Jr. Foundation, Houston Endowment, the John P. McGovern Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Texas Commission on the Arts, and The Wortham Foundation, Inc.

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