Sally Saul, New Pajamas, 2023, clay and glaze; 21 x 13.50 x 6.50 in. Courtesy of the artist and Venus Over Manhattan.
GO FIGURE Sally Saul’s delightful ceramics will be part of a group exhibition at Dallas Contemporary this April. INTERVIEW BY CHRIS BYRNE
Sally Saul, Troubled Waters, 2020, clay and glaze, in six parts, 12.50 x 28 x 17 in. Courtesy of the artist and Venus Over Manhattan.
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n April, Dallas Contemporary will present who’s afraid of cartoony figuration? comprised of the work of Karolina Jabłońska, Umar Rashid, Sally Saul, and Tabboo! who each intermix the levity of cartoons, comics, and commercial illustration with inescapable issues of today. Based in Germantown, New York, Saul injects sly wit into her humorous figures of animals that examine the quotidian with a healthy dose of existential neurosis. Chris Byrne speaks with the ceramicist in advance of the group exhibition here: Chris Byrne (CB): Your work will be included in Dallas Contemporary’s forthcoming exhibition who’s afraid of cartoony figuration? How did the show come about? Sally Saul (SS): My involvement with who’s afraid of cartoony figuration? came about in part because of inclusion in two group shows devoted to ceramic sculpture. One was Funk You Too! Humor and Irreverence in Ceramic Sculpture at the Museum of Arts and Design. Clay Pop at the Jeffrey Deitch gallery was the other show, both of which were exuberant and diverse with a sense of liberation from more conventional styles. CB: Yes, and this past summer, I had the chance to visit your exhibition People & Vases at Venus Over Manhattan. When did you become interested in making ceramics? SS: My interest in clay began gradually, first during the years my husband and I lived in the Bay area in California, where ceramics as an art form was really taking off (contrary to the East Coast) with all sorts of possibilities. However, although I looked at this work with real interest, I didn’t begin to seriously make pieces myself until we moved to Austin, Texas (1981 to 2000). My husband, Peter, took a teaching job in fine arts at the University of Texas,
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and we arrived with our two-year-old daughter in the middle of July when the temperature was over 100 degrees. That was a shock! We acclimated, however, and spent the following 19 years in Austin, in a neighborhood not far from the campus, with public springfed pools and the first Whole Foods store long before it became a corporate entity. There were many positives living in Austin in those years for adults and children. When our daughter began school, I discovered I could take ceramic classes at the university. There was a very large room with tables, chairs, and pottery wheels. Windows on one side looked out
Sally Saul, Couple, 2019, clay and glaze, 11.50 x 11.25 x 10 in. Courtesy of the artist and Venus Over Manhattan.