Ceramics in the Round: Rivers Advanced Students Visit MFA Exhibition
“Abstract ceramic art” might sound like a contradiction in terms, but students in Tim Clark’s Advanced Ceramics class at Rivers recently visited an exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston that perfectly reconciled the concrete and the abstract. The students also had a rare opportunity to meet with the curator of the show, which features the work of 20th-century ceramicist Toshiko Takaezu. Showcasing the breadth of Takaezu’s art, the exhibition presents ceramic works as abstract paintings in three dimensions.
Curator Nonie Gadsden, the Katharine Lane Weems Senior Curator of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture at the MFA, generously met with the Rivers students last Thursday and talked about Takaezu, her work, as well as the process of mounting the exhibition. Each student, said Clark, engaged in very thoughtful questions with the curator, enhancing the value of the field trip. “It was really amazing that we got to have this personal experience both with Takaezu’s work as well as the curator of this exhibition,” Clark said.
For Clark, the visit was more than a chance to expose students to the work of a renowned artist: He also has a connection to Takaezu, whom he describes as “a mentor.” Clark served as Takaezu’s apprentice for one year after graduating from college, having met her during his first year at Lewis & Clark College. “It was a transformative and hugely impactful experience for me,” Clark said. He described the MFA exhibit as a “beautiful representation of [Takaezu’s] aesthetic as viewed through multiple media,” which included ceramics, weavings, paintings, and bronze work.
Born in Hawaii to parents of Okinawan ancestry, Toshiko Takaezu (1922–2011) is considered one of the twentieth century’s greatest abstract artists, combining inspirations from her own background with currents from contemporary painting and sculpture. As a female Asian-American artist in a field dominated by men, for many years Takaezu did not get the recognition she deserved, as Gadsden shared with the Rivers group.
Seeing the work in person, says Clark, contextualized it and gave students in the advanced ceramics class an opportunity to engage meaningfully.
“It was really important for students to see an artist whose primary medium is ceramic, and how [Takaezu] her sensibility and vision carried through into the other media that she explored throughout her career,” Clark said.
“So much of our experience in class is seeing works projected on the screen,” he explained,
“but Toshiko’s work is all about the surface. To see the objects in the round is a fantastic experience.”
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