Artistic Ambivalence in Clay

This book is a collection of glimpses into the lives and works of fifteen prominent women artists in contemporary ceramics. Spanning multiple genres, generations, and geographies, these potters and ceramic sculptors describe nuances, contradictions, and tensions surrounding their artworks, artistic [...]
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This book is a collection of glimpses into the lives and works of fifteen prominent women artists in contemporary ceramics. Spanning multiple genres, generations, and geographies, these potters and ceramic sculptors describe nuances, contradictions, and tensions surrounding their artworks, artistic processes, and professional lives. Within this text, artistic ambivalences are questioned and analyzed in terms of myriad gender issues. Featured ceramicists include women working in the United States: Maureen Burns-Bowie, Esta Carnahan, Ellen Day, Cara Gay Driscoll, Dolores Dunning, Heidi Fahrenbacher, DeBorah Goletz, Lynn Goodman, Joan Hardin, Beth Heit, Tsehai Johnson, Kate Malone, Norma Messing, Elspeth Owen, and Mary Trainor. The qualitative research summarized within this book draws influence from feminist methodologies and the visual arts methodology of portraiture. Artists, art historians, and art educators interested in ceramics and gender will find detailed discussion of subtle and unexpected persistence of gendered associations within ceramic technology, binaries of gender identity in symbols and traditions of clay, and subtle sexism surrounding ceramics education.At the same time, this text celebrates women's work in ceramics as an often neglected set of perspectives, highlighting the intricate complexities of artistic ambivalences and lived experiences of art within a dynamic dialogue.