Curatorial Statement
Featured work posted online: Monday, June 10, 2024 at 10 am MT
Austin Riddle recently received his MFA in ceramics at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. He received his BFA in ceramics at the University of Utah in 2016. He has been an Artist-in-Residence at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, The Bright Angle in Asheville, North Carolina, and at Art Center West in Roswell, Georgia. He is currently a long term resident at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana. He was awarded emerging artist by Ceramics Monthly in 2019 and has exhibited his work all over the United States.
My pots are made as companions for you and your home. A vase for your table, full of freshly picked flowers as you and your partner eat breakfast and plan your day’s activities. Large platters and compartment trays to present home-cooked meals with friends on a warm summer evening. Whiskey sippers that nestle in warm hands, topped off as needed from a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels.
As a maker, I play these moments on repeat in my mind. As a designer, these scenarios direct the formal elements I develop for each piece. Pushing out an exaggerated belly on a modestly portioned whiskey sipper that complements the negative space of your palm, while keeping the rim thick and beveled to a crisp that fills the void of your lips. Satin, subdued surfaces formulated to mimic aging pastels of a soft vintage quilt that lay jumbled upon a morning bed. My approach has always been to design for my fantasy of Sunday morning breakfast with a fictitious loved one and the pots that elevate that tender moment. Pots can be conductors of romantic sentiment. I hope the viewer will invite my pots into their homes where they can quietly enrich simple and significant moments.
The pots I make represent my creative effort towards understanding my yearning for a romantic life I can’t seem to create or explain for myself. I believe the pots can represent this weight, to be romantic without explanation, to exist at home in the present while remaining hopeful for the future.
– Austin Riddle