ARTIST STATEMENT
Hands touching clay, I am truly alive: Soul, spirit, body, connected. I make ceramics in small families using different types of clay, interested in how each clay body and glaze combination can vary in kiln atmospheres with different fuel sources and firing methods: gas, wood, electric. Duality drives the making and decorating of my pots, such as the intersection of natural and urban environments where tangled vines, leaves, grasses, and weeds demonstrate both fragility and power over the human world. Opposite archetypal shapes seek to balance and provide rhythm; deliberate lines and squares versus swirls, arcs and circles. Negative space in the open vessel series provides simplicity and opportunity for new value, transformation, and preservation. They suggest both delicacy and strength, properties of clay at various stages in the making and firing process. Altered at the precise ‘leather hard’ moment to resist warping or breaking, these vessels serve as a visual reminder of clay’s body memory while suggesting the same truth about the impact of touch on the human body and its implicit memory system. Clay scrolls, rolled and preserved, are part of the process of wiring a pot off the wheel. Cared for with caution, they do a delicate dance alone then gain strength when grouped and adhered to each other. We are individuals, but stronger together. Clay heals. It has power to heal both the maker and the user of ceramic forms. Created by one human for another, clay invites all of us to its table.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Susan Messer McBride is Chicago based ceramic educator and artist combining her love of clay, learning and teaching. A former English teacher, and ceramic artist for over twenty five years, McBride has lived and taught in the States, as well as in China, Kenya, and Mexico. She teaches periodically at Made Chicago in IL, Barro Sur in Todos Santos, MX as well as in her local private studio, Mind Clay Body. McBride finds purpose and peace through ceramic work, recognizing the vast healing properties intrinsic with touching clay. These beliefs led her to Australia to study and receive certification as a provider of Clay Field Therapy, a haptic based, sensorimotor intervention that has the power to heal trauma or developmental delays through touching clay in a shallow wooden box. Other pivotal experiences include teaching ceramics to Red Line Service participants at Hull House Museum’s Radical Craft exhibition in 2025, participating in Still Counting, a special exhibition at SOFA in 2019, and directing Nasty Women Art Chicago at Moonlight Studios in 2017. She is currently co-creating Pots to the People: Seconds for the First Amendment, a grassroots, pottery focused fundraiser for the ACLU, an organization that preserves and protects our human rights.
© Susan Messer McBride