Red Lodge Clay Center Short-Term Resident (ASPN) 2015
Lily Fein hails from Massachusetts. She received her BFA from Syracuse University, and then went on to participate in various residencies in the United States including The Archie Bray Foundation, Northern Clay Center, The Society of Arts and Crafts, Craigardan, and Project Art. She currently lives in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Clay excites me for its immediate and direct response to touch as I coil and pinch layers of porcelain to create vessels imbued with the intimacy of a finger-marked surface. The shapes of the ceramic vessels I produce are determined by the bases I create for them and how I alter their forms by pushing the walls from inside and out. I encourage the objects to morph and change as I create them, developing a language of improvisation through whimsy. The curves and twists of the vessels invoke sensuality that is spontaneous and in the spirit of the making. I am interested in touch both locally in the mark of the fingerprint and at distance in how these pieces relate to each other.
Since the walls of my vessels are so thin, the kiln slumps and folds them in particularly vulnerable areas. My process thus hinges on the interplay between what can be controlled and what cannot. The pots hold the memory of the shape they knew during the making process, but they are also formed by the unpredictability of the kiln. The outcome is a porcelain vessel that stretches the limits of the material.