Ventura College Visiting Artist
Ceramic artist S. Horn will share his "Mad Potter" throwing techniques with Ventura College Ceramics students in workshops on March 15 & 16 from 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. in SAB 102.
There will also be an artist talk open to the public on Wednesday, March 15 at 10 a.m. in SAB 101.
Artist's Statement:
Anyone who works in clay is confronted with a multitude of possibilities. Complexity and surprise are built into the medium, the process, the technology. Take one purposeful step down an artistic path, and you’re immediately face to face with a crossroads that wasn’t on your mental GPS.
Should you keep going straight—or, what the hell, wouldn’t it be more fun to turn left or right and see what you run into? Exploring the unexpected side roads has always appealed to me. It’s like going on a walkabout. As a teacher I always say to students: “Try it and see what happens.” This is my own artistic mantra.
My aesthetic wanderings have been guided by the works of the ancient Minoans, Etruscans, Greeks, and Romans; by Japanese ceramic traditionsJomon, Haniwa, Iga, Bizen, and Oribe; by artists like Gauguin, Miró, Picasso, Motherwell, Pollock, and George Ohr; and by the ideas of minimalism and other art movements. My modes of working in clay encompass drawing, painting, and printing as well as handbuilding, moldmaking, and throwing (if only, sometimes, to smash a pot on the wheel or to engineer its collapse).
What I hope unites my work is a sense of the excitement I experienced in going offroad—and there’s still so much to explore out there.
