An artist statement for the Clay Studio solo show, Dec. 2020

 “The Usefulness of Use”

Ever since the pandemic started, I have been wondering what I can do and how I can help. As a person, an artist, a potter, is there anything I can do for this world? So many things changed, so many lives lost, without seeing any light from the end of the tunnel, how can I be useful?

Once my mentor said that our job as an artist is not providing answers but making clear of the questions. We cannot come up with solutions, but we can present hope through our work, comfort people, and stand with them.

All of the pieces in this exhibition were created since the pandemic started. I am one of the lucky people that can keep making the work at home, while many artists lost an access to ceramic studios during the shutdown. While working in the basement, I observed my work kept shrinking physically and emotionally, just like my world. Keeping the symbolic idea of function was helpful to stop the reduction of physical scales, to keep my mind function at a certain level. The function in this body of work is the delivering vehicle of emotions.

This exhibition is my attempt to keep connected to people and explore how I and my work can be useful in many different ways. Between stories and functions, sometimes recording my emotions of the day,  sometimes learning from history on how we repeat ourselves, I swung back and forth.