Red Lodge Clay Center – Short-Term Resident 2023
Owen Marc Laurion is a multidisciplinary sculptor and potter originally from New Hampshire. With a BA in Anthropology and Philosophy from the University of Rochester, and a MFA in Sculpture from the San Francisco Art Institute, Owen draws upon a range of influences, histories and perspectives for his work. Owen has also worked as a cook and chef for much of his life which has had a particularly strong influence on his practice and an important impact on his approach to functional design. Owen has exhibited nationally and participated in residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, North Carolina Pottery Center, Starworks, and the Iowa Ceramics Center and Glass Studio. He also presented a Co-Lecture with Deighton Abrams at the 2018 NCECA titled Seeking Ethical Craft. Owen has recently moved to Iowa City, IA with his wife Jenelle, an artist and filmmaker.
I like the time it takes to walk to the grocery store. Or, the time between two mountains along a ridge. Working with clay is a similar embodied experience of time. I like how space merges with my own body – not just the physical site but the cultured space which I reproduce in the passing through, passing by, passing. Culture takes time. Buildings take a shorter amount of time and of course tectonics have their own scale. My work is an exploration of cultured space – of sociotecture. Ceramic sculptures and pots are formed by hand, playfully built up with coil or slab, cut back, stretched, pinched, scratched. Objects are imbued with as much whimsy as intention. I want the making to reveal itself in its finished form – as I am the accumulation of experience, my work is a practice in transparency and geologies. This is an ethical stance as much as it is a formal attitude towards art making and craft.