Description

“My current work is influenced, as always, by my internal logic as well as daily occurrences. Lately, auditory cues seem to fuel me as much as visual sensations. It could be the singular birdsong at first light that becomes a cacophony of voices creating a layering of pitch, texture, and rhythm, which is suddenly shot through with the town’s train whistle. Or listening to a Beethoven sonata, its structure presented, expanded, broken, enhanced, the pulse quickened. Or playing Poulenc nocturnes on the piano: the unusual chords unfamiliar to hand but yielding such satisfaction. Observances such as these weave through my day in the studio, sifting out in mysterious and abstract ways. I remain open to the idea that an unforeseen disruption can lead to a novel outcome.

Visually, I’m drawn to playful, rich, oddball colors. I aim for isolation and clarity of color, as well as luminosity. I find inspiration in such diverse works as the lush paintings of Thomas Nozkowski and the pieced quilts of Gee’s Bend. I lean toward more austere, spare forms: architectonic, Shakeresque. I often use geometric structure to map the space of a pot. The pinched coils create a visual texture, tempo and rhythm, inherent to the process. Antiphonal call and response music seems the perfect parallel of working intuitively in the studio, as each exchange with the clay beckons the next.”

-Holly Walker