Artist Statement
In studying my forms and methods, I can see patterns of trial and error; success and failure and often these processes are my best lessons. My themes develop along the leitmotif of line, form and decoration of the piece that are fashioned into a visual statement after careful deliberation and research.
These slab built, coil and altered ceramic sculptural works feature repetitive patterns or designs.
In my figurative series, the human form is worked into the clay and then deconstructed with surface techniques. The classical human shape is transformed into an extemporaneous canvas, similar, in part, to the fascination with pop culture, being of the moment, not necessarily of the time.
I use various clay types from mid-fire stoneware or low-fire earthenware to allow the opportunity to explore detail and refining of decoration during the green and bisque stages, often using the surface of the clay body integrated into the design of the piece. I utilize several oxidation firings for works that include stencils, slips, underglazes, slip trailing, mishima, image transfer, decals, overglaze and/or china painting embellishment.
BIO
Melanie Shaw received her BA from Hunter College, New York, with a double major in Digital Media and Film and Studio Arts (ceramics concentration) and graduated summa cum laude with Phi Beta Kappa honors. Her artist residencies have included Guaitil Pottery, Tamarindo, Costa Rica, Brickhouse Ceramic Art Center, New York, Hunter College, New York, Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Maine, and Penland School of Crafts, North Carolina. Her curating experience includes exhibitions “Personal Universal”, “Funk: American Dada” & “Critical Function I”, Pittsburgh (NCECA), “50 Women-A Celebration of Women’s Contribution to Ceramics”, Kansas City (NCECA), “Texas State of Clay”, Bastrop, TX, and “Gems of the Hill Country”, Tea + Art, Houston, TX, “Jewels of Earth and Fire”, Pittsburgh (NCECA), and “Critical Function II”, Richmond (NCECA). Her speaking engagements have included “Members in Memorium” NCECA, Cinncinati, OH, ScanCeram, Denmark, and Bastrop Historical Society, Bastrop, TX.
She is a self-employed ceramic artist, teacher and owner of Art Off Center, LLC., a ceramics-teaching center in Taylor, TX as of 2017 after to moving to Texas in 2014. Ms. Shaw also teaches a ceramics decorating workshop called “Color Collage on Clay” at various locations in Texas, and has taught/demonstrated this class at via Zoom for GACA, Austin, TX, Cynthia Brinson Studios in Arlington and at CERA pottery studio in Ft. Worth.