Artist's Statement
Having painted and published illuminated books, I now work primarily in ceramics. Having lived and traveled extensively in Asia and the Middle East, I find that my past experiences with different cultures provide a deep well from which I draw ideas and create images, always starting from a very strong “mind’s eye” vision. Beginning with that picture in my mind, the process of creating the piece is the work of bringing the image into the material world, making it exist as a physical reality in clay.
Like my previous work in other mediums, my ceramic work features forms and patterns from the natural world. For me, the ceramic form is a three-dimensional canvas upon which I can experiment with some of the same imagery found in my illuminated books. I am often asked how I made the change from two-dimensional paintings to three-dimensional ceramic pieces. Of course, the third dimension adds form to the equation, and if the basic form is flawed, or is not synchronized with the surface design, the result will be less than satisfactory. But since my two-dimensional work is so carefully composed in relation to its two-dimensional boundaries, the move into three-dimensional art has been very natural to me; the boundaries are just different.
Some of my pieces are influenced by visual memories of places I have visited, or art that I have seen in museums all over the world. Still others are conceptual. The pot form allows the possibility of working not just with the outside, but with what might be implied by the inside. Using the inside of the vessel as a conceptual foil for the outside, some of my large pieces have a metaphysical resonance. Implied are the dichotomies between the inner and outer, between that which is hidden and that which is seen, between the esoteric and the exoteric, suggesting infinity in the continuity between the inside and outside. In what I call my “Metaphysical Pots” the water is at once both inside of the pot and outside, becoming metaphorically both the Water of Life and the Infinite Ocean, symbolizing the continuous process between creation and transcendence. (see Metaphysical Pots)
I have experimented with various surface techniques, most notably carving on a leather-hard surface, as well as multiple glazing with resist designs. More recently I have developed sculptural techniques, altering thrown forms to get more depth and dynamism into my relief carving. (see especially "Flight 2, the Phoenix" and "Gold Before Blooming" on the Repeating Shapes page.) My pieces are large and labor intensive, mostly on stoneware with its possibilities for rich colors and textures, and consist of one-of-a-kind pieces, though some are variations on a theme. In the future look for more sculptural alterations and the addition of wax encaustic as an alternative to a strictly glazed surface.
-Judith
Ernst
Fall, 2008
