reading 1

Clark, Garth, and John Pagliaro. ""Interior Dances: A Personal Response to the Vessels of Babs Haenen." Shards: Garth Clark on Ceramic Art. [New York, N.Y.]: Distributed Art Publications, 2003. 103-08. Print.

"Art is a verb, not a noun, it is not what art is that is important but what it does!"

                                                                                              - Robert Turner

    What exactly is art? Is it a noun? A verb? An adjective? In Garth Clark's article entitled "Interior Dances: A Personal Response to the Vessels of Babs Haenen," Clark writes of his fascination with the above quote in relation to the "series of interior dances" and Organic Abstraction within Haenen's ceramic forms. 

    Upon examining his own purchased piece of Haenen's work, Clark is quick to note its strong sense of physicality. He expresses it as a comforting, charming, blue and white form suggesting to him the vague image of a figure, which after seeing an image of the choreographer Martha Graham during her performance of the ballet Lamentation is he able to express as a "series of interior dances." Clark then goes on to tell of the "dance" or "dynamic interplay" between the interior (contained space) and exterior (displaced space) of a vessel, the "movement" of color, and the "thrusting" of the pot walls each coming together as a sort of "choreography." He writes, "Potters have long acknowledged that the performing arts of music and dance with their emphasis on action and repetition hold truer analogies to the field of pottery that either painting or sculpture" (p.105). Coming from a background in dance, I too have found fascinating similarities between dance and pottery (specifically the wheel-throwing process). Both use movement, physical repetition, gesture, space, rhythm, and shape to express a message to an audience. Dance, existing only in a moment, lives in a fluid realm of time and perception whereas pottery takes on a more permanent form as it is fired, changing its chemical makeup. However, both forms of art, when communicated thoroughly, teach the viewer to connect physically and visually. The subtleties of this process can be seen within the gestures of line, color and form of Haenen’s work in a remarkably humble and approachable way.

     Clark also discusses the cultural context of Haenen’s pieces as belonging to Organic Abstraction. He explains this in terms of her use of multiple colored clays and their link to history as well as her overall composition of forms in and of themselves, straying from a focus on “function” or “decoration.” He explains, “The best Organic Abstraction of the ‘60s does not seek to be pretty. It is tough, edgy art that exploits the most raw, expressionistic, elements of the material and form,” (p.108) and goes on to say that “Her [Haenen’s] art is clearly urbane and at the time bluntly honest, like the artist herself” (p.108). I think it is important to remember as artists that the point at which we feel as if we are presenting too much of ourselves through our art, when we have been too honest, is perhaps the moment when our art really starts to say something. I would also like to suggest that art (as Clary Illian writes) is a place, not as a specific noun but as a continually changing realm of discussion that constantly influences our physical lives. Art is about connecting through movement to the underlying truths of our daily lives, both through making as well as experiencing.

Molly Post