Chris Campbell

My choice to make functional pottery is a way to engage individuals through all their senses, something that sets this art form apart from others. Referencing the vast history of ceramics I focus on those cultures that place a deep significance on functional objects and at times have elevated a mundane pot to sublime status. Forms developed from these sources tend toward the understated and the familiar. I typically use unglazed clay fired in a wood-burning kiln as the finish on a piece. Occasionally an austere glaze may be used to cover the form. In either case these pots will probably challenge the definition of beauty. These surface choices help to hold the users attention and perhaps discover something new and unexpected about the pot in particular and the experience of using a functional object. My pots contain ideas lying somewhere between comfortable and uncomfortable, familiar and unfamiliar, ugly and beautiful. This middle ground has the potential to interact with the individual on levels more closely associated with fine art such as feelings of spirituality or of personal reflection.