Chop-Wood-Carry-Water

Work in a small un-modernized ceramics studio is a direct relationship with nature. By “un-modernized” I am referring to a production environment, which is not artificially controlled, as is the case with much larger commercial productions. A future and potential partner with Andersen Design, may chose to build a modernized production studio, for the purpose of gaining greater control over the variables, but others may welcome the vanishing opportunity to interact directly with elements of nature in one’s day to day working process. In a uncontrolled environment, the liquid slip and even the firing of the kiln responds to the changing seasons and weather-related factors as humidity and outside temperature.

Even in a controlled environment, ceramics remains a relationship with nature, the more so that one works directly with the raw materials. Measuring has always been stressed by my mentor and father, Weston Neil Andersen, but to my experience intuition is just as vital, and is increased and developed by the discipline of the scientific approach. Monona, our caster, knows my secret, - that I never measure the water content as I am mixing the raw materials that make our casting slip. Instead I measure after I am done and nine times out of ten the measurement is precisely on the mark. My father always instructs the slip-maker to measure the water, just as we measure all other ingredients, but he is well aware of the intuition’s ability to measure, as he has often repeated the story from his childhood about observing the farmers talking by a fence and as they talked, they would pick up handfuls of dirt and run it through their fingers. Ceramic work and farming have many similarities, both create something from the raw materials of nature, and both, as Dad has described, are “very scientific”, and both rely on the grace of greater and natural forces. In every kiln firing the hand of nature makes all the final decisions.

Perhaps someday someone will develop a computer program that can instantly calculate the interactions between all the particles that participate in a kiln firing, but until that day, ceramic results depend on the grace of forces beyond one’s control. As an artist, one has to learn to accept what has been created in partnership with nature, even when it defies the artist’s original intent. Often the artist has to wait until ready to accept the results before passing artistic judgment on the finished work. If one uses one’s predetermined expectations as the measure of the result, one may be blinded from perceiving the more mysterious beauty created by the natural will of nature.

Forms created by Andersen Studio lend themselves to continual re-invention through glazing and decoration. The classic and unique shapes have an enduring appeal, creating a foundational basis upon which to develop further ideas about form, color, and individuality.

Individuality is an essentially American ideal, which is expressed through the creative process at Andersen Studio.