Mary Oestereicher Hamill: regardisregard
Mary Oestereicher Hamill is a multi-media artist and pioneer of participatory photo-based art, shining a light on the needs of poor and marginalized people in our society.
My current ceramic work explores invoking vessel references in large-scale forms reminiscent of abandoned industrial tools, gaudily-colored. I use clay in the fashioning of both stands and tables, and the pottery forms cobbled together from wheel-thrown and hand-built components. I aspire to attain in my work the wedding of the prosaic yet intimate qualities of functional pottery to the more assertive power of industrial tools, both relegated to an age more closely attuned to human labor and striving. It is less a matter of describing a sense of loss than to invoke wonder and curiosity in the work I now produce.
For the last decade I have been exploring and developing my current work of large-scale vessels, departing from attempts to employ traditional glazing surface treatments in favor of enamel and Casein paints. I made this break for better uniformity and control over the colors and textures needed for the results I seek. Instead of producing pottery, the wheel is now more of a tool for generating some of the parts I use combined with hand-built forms for assembling large vessels. I still rely on vessel references, but only tangentially and as a point of departure for sculptural exploration and invention.
Doug Herren