Collection Focus: Mara Superior at RAM

(Above) Figure 3: Mara Superior, Amphora/Continuum, 1986, English Grolleg porcelain, Cornwall stone glaze, ceramic oxides, underglazes, faux marble paint, and brass pins; wooden base made by Roy Superior, 18 5/8 x 24 5/8 x 8 7/8 inches, Racine Art Museum, Gift of Kohler Foundation, Inc., Photography: Jon Bolton

Blending past and present day concerns, notions of Americana, and personal experience, Mara Superior playfully both challenges and adds to a history of porcelain decorative objects and tableware. With a singular aesthetic that feels reverent yet unique, Superior builds narratives that unfold through images, words, and form. She has gained attention due, in part, to her work’s approachability. While acknowledging the “feminine” side of her work with choices in content, color palette, and ornament, Superior depicts whatever is impacting her at the moment––never shying from contemporary topics––while pushing the possibilities of her chosen medium.

This publication marks a significant moment in Superior’s relationship with the Racine Art Museum. It is produced to coincide with the debut of a multi-piece gift from the Kohler Foundation, Inc. that catapults RAM’s holdings of work by Superior from two pieces, already gifted by other donors, to 33. Now, she is not only a RAM archive artist and the most collected female ceramic artist but also the second most collected ceramic artist regardless of gender. RAM’s holdings of Superior’s work include platters, teapots, vessels, and a collaborative piece with her late husband, sculptor and furniture maker, Roy Superior. Spanning over three decades, from 1982 to 2018, RAM’s collection emphasizes Superior’s personal history—her connection to art and ceramic history, her appreciation for “home” and ideas about the domestic, and her love of travel. While these are not the only topics Superior addresses in her work, they are foundational ones and provide a layered and nuanced accounting of the artist’s approach to working with porcelain.

Figure 4: Mara Superior, Jumbo/The Elephant, 1987, English Grolleg porcelain, Cornwall stone glaze, ceramic oxides, and underglazes, 15 5/8 inches diameter, Racine Art Museum, Gift of Kohler Foundation, Inc., Photography: John Polak

Describing Superior’s work in the terms of its functional inspiration— platters, teapots, vessels—is useful but only marginally evocative of what she produces. Her work is sculptural and always narrative—with that story sometimes weaving in ideas of functionality such as the teapots titled A Tea Party, 1985 (fig 2) and A Tea House, 1988 (fig 1). A Tea Party in particular—with its imagery of a teapot and tea service on one side and a teapot within a teapot on the other—plays with the functional possibility of the objects but also the social possibility of the objects symbolizing people gathering and interacting. Thinking broadly, it could also draw on porcelain’s past as a material connecting history, countries, commerce, and social standing. If read this way, Superior’s work connects to other contemporary artists such as Ann Agee, Christina Antemann, and Roberto Lugo who self-consciously investigate the history of their chosen medium from multiple dimensions.

To achieve certain shapes as well as establish her distinct color palette, Superior combines slab building and press molding with underglaze painting and the use of oxides. Her standard iconography involves animal characters, portraits, interior and exterior landscapes, greenery, text, and embellishments such as dot patterns, scrolls, and the suggestion of floral sprigs. The detailed drawings of the elephant in Jumbo/The Elephant, 1987 (fig 4) and the swan in Black Swan Occurrence/A Rarity (The Great Recession of 2008), 2020 (fig 5) are offset by decorative patterns on the former and text on the latter. The patterns and words enhance the realistic portrayals of these animals—offering individualized portraits more than sentimental renderings.

Variations occur in details and color but imagery is most often articulated through a palette of green, blue, red, and gold with the white of the porcelain operating both as a substantial color and grounding of the imagery. Superior first studied painting in college as well as some printmaking. The finesse of her line drawing and handling of color–– skills that would have been magnified with those studies––contribute to the distinct character of her work.

Figure 5: Mara Superior, A Black Swan Occurrence/A Rarity (The Great Recession of 2008), 2010, English Grolleg porcelain, Cornwall stone glaze, ceramic oxides, and underglazes, 15 7/8 inches diameter, Racine Art Museum, Gift of Kohler Foundation, Inc., Photography: John Polak

To put it simply, Superior brings a multitude of inspirations and influences to her work—illuminated manuscripts, Persian miniatures, classical art and architecture, historical ceramics, Americana, fantasy, needlework, early Renaissance painting, and Egyptian hieroglyphics, to name just a few. As her work is frequently autobiographical, content is shaped by both daily and dramatic circumstances. While Superior’s love of travel is reflected in work such as Bella Italia, 2006 (fig 11)—an homage to Italy with depictions of famous scenes and landmarks, a crest, and cuisine, topped with a Mona Lisa—she also contemplates things close to home. While she grew up in an urban environment, the move to the New England countryside has had a profound impact on her. She states of that time: “It was when I was beginning my own home and thinking about, you know, the country life and the beauty of this bucolic area to be in and live in. And I embraced all things. We discovered the Shakers at this time. We were in the country. We were going to antique shops. We were going to antique shows. I got very interested in Americana.”

While a notion of Americana is not always easy to define, in Superior’s hands, it is evoked in color combinations, patterns, and an emphasis on an idyllic home life. Her platter, A Home Comfort, 1984 (fig 15) evokes a sweet domestic interior with its kitchen replete with a stove adorned with loaves of bread, a blue-and-white coffee pot, pink striped wallpaper, lace curtains, a broom resting against the wall, and a wood-planked floor. The braided rug and—what appear to be—baskets hanging near the stove suggest not just a cozy, intimate interior but one with handmade or vintage touches—the types of things that echo the influences Superior mentions.

For Superior, the influence of Americana also included historical needlework and samplers. There is a direct connection to those textiles in the combination of imagery and text as well as the formalized layout with pattern as imagery and as border. There is also a connected sensibility in subject matter and in the way samplers reflected everyday life, social and cultural dynamics, politics, economics, and history.

Another aspect of home life that is articulated in her work are potential intangible associations—intimacy, comfort, and love. Both June, 2016 (fig 9) and The West/Playhouse, 2017 (fig 13) offer home “portraits” with a house situated among trees, flowers, and animals, including rabbits in the yard. Each has visually leading pathways to the front door and, while articulated slightly differently, each suggests a positive, welcoming environment.

Figure 6: Mara Superior, Afternoon Tea, 1996, English Grolleg porcelain, Cornwall stone glaze, ceramic oxides, underglazes, white gold leaf, and brass pins; wooden base made by Roy Superior, 13 1/2 x 18 x 7 7/8 inches, Racine Art Museum, Gift of Kohler Foundation, Inc., Photography: John Polak

Love, as an extension of her home and as a universal emotion, is addressed in numerous works. A Swan’s Wedding Day/Mates for Life, 2008 (fig 7) depicts multiple swans, including a centralized pair touching beak to beak. Swans, a species that chooses a mate for life, are significant in Superior’s body of work, showing up repeatedly and a reflection of her broad use of symbol and metaphor.5 A series of collaborative works with her artist husband, Roy, offers another metaphor for love, intimacy, and connection. Pearls Collaborative Cabinet, 2008 (figs 17 and 18) which is comprised of a custom-made cabinet painted in egg tempera by Roy and a stacked piece by Mara—both sea and water-themed—tangibly reflects their layered and loving partnership, as well as their sometimes professional collaboration.

Describing herself as “extremely visually-oriented,”6 Superior has long been looking at things, studying them, effectively cataloguing and curating them in her head. A fan of history—art history, decorative object history, cultural history—the artist has also spent many hours in museums, absorbing objects, images, and ideas from various cultures and time periods. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in particular, played a formative role— born and raised in New York City, she was able to visit frequently in her youth. While the information absorbed from museums could be inspirational in many ways, one way it is reflected in her work is in pieces such as Amphora/Continuum, 1984 (fig 3) where object types are offered as subject matter and arranged as collections. Collections, and the idea of them, are significant within Superior’s body of work—as an organizing principle, as an area of interest, and as an ongoing topic. Amphora/Continuum’s imagery—a combination of written dates and both illustrated and miniature examples—presents a visual timeline of shapes and content. Drawn and formed, these elements underscore the notion of a continuum of ideas, the word “continuum” itself being added to the base. This piece illustrates many aspects of Superior’s work—the significance of history, her love and knowledge of the medium, and her compelling style with detailed drawings and text. Amphora/Continuum also illustrates her emphasis on sculptural form, and, notably, her self-conscious yet humble acknowledgment that her work is part of a continuum of ceramic vessels and of her own role within that succession. She states, “I was so excited to be on this path; I used the word ‘continuum,’ as I felt that I was part of this long history from 480 AD in China, to Meissen, to Me.”

Figure 7: Mara Superior A Swan’s Wedding Day/ Mates for Life, 2007, English Grolleg porcelain, Cornwall stone glaze, ceramic oxides, underglazes, gold leaf, bone, ink, and brass pins; wooden base by Roy Superior, 19 1/2 x 15 3/4 x 9 5/8 inches, Racine Art Museum, Gift of Kohler Foundation, Inc., Photography: Jon Polak

Indeed, it is worthwhile to note that Superior is a part of that continuum in some ways that may not be as obvious as well. Akin to the work of a few stand out makers in the late 1800s and early 1900s—such as Adelaide Alsop Robineau and Mary Chase Perry Stratton—Superior’s work disrupts assumptions about women as merely the decorators of porcelain vessels. Reflecting greater societal values and despite there being evidence to the contrary, there was a time when women’s roles within the arts were largely categorized as “superficial” or, at best, secondary. Within modern ceramics, this was exaggerated as hand-painting on ceramic wares—an extension of painting on porcelain or china painting—became a hobby endeavor of middle-class women in North America and Europe. Rather than being celebrated as self expression, it was marginalized as “women’s work.” At the same time, the field of ceramics was given a boost by makers such as Robineau and Perry Stratton who became design and production innovators. While this may seem a removed point for contemporary audiences, it serves to underscore the historical framework in which Superior’s objects and actions reside. Her palette full of soft—almost pastel—colors and decorative embellishments seems traditional— or somehow stereotypically feminine—yet her works upend function and her narratives full of personal and meaningful content remind us that this is a modern artist filtering the world through her own lens. Also, similar to Robineau and Perry Stratton, she is free to make choices about how and what she wants to create and does so forthrightly.

Figure 7: Mara Superior, A Swan’s Wedding Day/Mates for Life, 2007 English Grolleg porcelain, Cornwall stone glaze, ceramic oxides, underglazes, gold leaf, bone, ink, and brass pins; wooden base by Roy Superior 19 1/2 x 15 3/4 x 9 5/8 inches, Racine Art Museum, Gift of Kohler Foundation, Inc.

Superior, who received a BFA in painting from the University of Connecticut and an MAT in ceramics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, has achieved significant recognition in her career—including representation at prestigious craft shows in the earlier days and inclusion in numerous exhibitions. In addition, her work can be found in museum collections across the country including Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Arts and Design, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, and the White House Collection of American Crafts, Clinton Presidential Center, Little Rock, Arkansas. She has received a National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artists Fellowship and multiple individual artist grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. In 2010, Superior was interviewed for the oral history program of the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art.

Arguably, any art object reflects its maker—revealing particular thoughts, skills, and choices. Mara Superior takes it a step further by creating work that is often purposefully self-referential and autobiographical. Reflecting her own experiences as well as the times she lives in, her work charts a personal path that has the capacity to resonate across a larger audience and the themes she addresses are themes of the human condition. With an archive of Superior’s work established, RAM, fortunate in this ability to collect the work of artists in depth, is able to offer a substantial, sustained look at a singular contemporary artist.

—Lena Vigna Curator of Exhibitions, Racine Art Museum