From Studio to Exhibition Space, June 29, 2026
Shelley Rosenstein
working in the studio is an isolating experience. Alone with one’s ideas (my ideas!), inspirations and imagination, my thoughts cycle recalling flowers, plants and gardens; photos and travel; museum visits and other’s pottery, as well as techniques and the vast possibilities of ceramic art.
The artist must select a concept, plan/sketch and develop the concept into a structure, a working plan. Remarkably, clay can be used in so many ways, so the artist relies on prior experience and experimentation. Knowing that ceramics have always existed between art and life, one uses the muscle of memory.
The work time is usually a zone of rigorous concentration, action and quiet contemplation. As a piece nears completion, one considers how, in an exhibition space, others join the experience and their own memories provide new context for the object. Regarding how the object relates to its inspiration and how experimentation can push the boundaries of precedence, viewers form their own response to an object. When you see something you relate to strongly, you want to live with and, sometimes, use that object.
As a ceramic collector for many decades, I know that in an exhibition space, one’s object takes on a life of its own. It feels so rewarding to meet the viewers who decide they want to live with the object you’ve created! Sharing the object with others brings new insights and often pushes the artist forward in their path of experimentation and new discoveries of clay, a magical material.
