Jennifer McCurdy Library

Publications

Published articles that may further your understanding of Jennifer's work

		Jennifer McCurdy Harnesses an Island’s Natural Rhythms in Captivating Porcelain Vessels This is Colossal January 30, 2023 > more info				"Porcelain in motion" A studio visit with ceramic artist Jennifer McCurdy UNITED STATES Martha's Vineyard Magazine Fall, 2014 > read article
		Nature's Forms Arts and Antiques November 2022 > more info				"The Porcelain Sorceress" UNITED STATES Vineyard Style Spring, 2011 > read article
		Making Waves American Craft summer 2021 > more info				"Spirals and Spheres" UNITED STATES Sunshine Artist January, 2011 > read article
		Vessels: A Conversation in Porcelain and Poetry" book by Jennifer McCurdy & Wendy Mulhern, published by Schiffer LTD 2017 > more info				"Jennifer Fe Daerat Elfan" EGYPT Elbeit Magazine Summer, 2010 > read article
		"Throwing Curves" UNITED STATES Cape Cod Home Winter, 2017 > read article				"Jennifer McCurdy: The cutting edge of porcelain" CHINA Culture and Art Weekly / Foreign Artist China Ceramics Illustrated Biweekly July 28, 2010 page 26-28 > read article
		"Jennifer McCurdy" Laat zien hoe zij een werk maakt en omgekeerd stookt. NETHERLANDS de kleine K Number 21, September, 2016 > read article				"An Island Aesthetic" UNITED KINGDOM Ceramic Review 245 September / October 2010 page 58-61 & 64-65 > read article
		"Honoring the Past, Embracing the Future" UNITED STATES Ceramics Monthly May, 2016 > read article				"Defying Gavity: Jennifer McCurdy's Carved & Pierced Porcelain" UNITED STATES Clay Times Volume 14 Number 4 July/August 2008 page 34-39 > read article
		"Craftspeople In Their Own Words" Jennifer McCurdy and 80+ craftspeople tell their stories UNITED STATES To Benefit the Craft Emergency Relief Fund May, 2016 > BUY ONLINE ON AMAZON				“500 Vases”, Lark Books, 2011 “Ceramics Today” book published by Schiffer LTD, 2010 “The Best of 500 Ceramics”, Lark Books, 2012
		"Art & Artists - Jennifer McCurdy: A Most Talented & Technical Artist" BRAZIL Mao na Massa artes do fogo Fall, 2015 > read article

Interview

Jennifer McCurdy Gilded Coral Splash VII Photograph by Julius Friedman

Artist's Interview LaFontsee Gallery - November, 2005

1. What was your first memorable experience with art?
My first memory at all was of decorating a pine cone when I was two. But now I think I was excited, not by the glitter, but by really seeing the pine cone as art. What can be more beautiful that a pine cone?

2. Can you explain when you first knew you wanted to be an artist? Who/what turned you on to art?
I never wanted to be an artist. I just wanted to play with clay, draw, build blocks, like all children do. My grandmother taught me the rudiments of watercolor when I was a little older. She painted for many years and exhibited in some shows. She also taught me Ikebana - the art of Japanese flower arranging.

3. Is there any single piece of art that had an impact on you as a child? An adolescent? An adult?
I remember as a child being blown away by a large Calder mobile, hanging - I don't remember where. That something so massive as those large slices of metal could be balanced so perfectly as to gracefully wander though the air creating colorful, flowing arcs as they did so, was something I could not forget. I amused myself on many occasions after that, twisting pieces of cut up coat hangers into curly cues and balancing them horizontally with kite string.

4. What artists influenced you the most? Current influences?
Well, I've always loved Georgia O'Keefe - the forms she painted, as well as her attitude. In clay, I learned by watching better potters throw, trim, and glaze. Louis Raynor, one of my professors at Michigan State University, said that your most important tool as a potter was the hammer, and I have always thought that to be good advice. I learned to throw bottles by watching the disciplined precision of a potter from Iraq. I was further influenced by the superb teaching of John McCoy, at Florida Atlantic University, who taught me the nuances of throwing porcelain. More currently, I have been influenced by the concept of fractals, first introduced to me in a book called "Fractals - The Patterns of Chaos. Discovering a New Aesthetic of Art, Science, and Nature", by John Briggs.

5. What do you like most about the medium and surface you use?
I like the smoothness and starkness of porcelain; it's like bleached bones or white beach rocks. I wish to find the structure of the vessel, the skeleton of the vessel, and I wish the surface design to be the light and shadows, created by the structure. Porcelain possesses translucency, as well a quality of reflecting light without being shiny. Because I confine myself to the thrown form, I am mostly working within a sphere. But there seem to be infinite possibilities within that parameter.

6. What information/ideas are behind your current body of work?
Perhaps it is still about creating movement and balance in a porcelain vessel form. The clay is so plastic, alive, under your fingers when you throw it on the wheel, the wet clay so giving when you alter it, and it becomes molten and soft in the white-hot belly of the kiln. But after it cools it is hard - one of the hardest substances know to man, so it is all too easy for it to lose its motion.

7. What do you want people to respond to in your work?
I don't know. I guess I think that that is their responsibility.

8. Do you have predetermined ideas of what your finished work will be like, or do the ideas emerge in process?
My work is very process oriented, in that I try to throw a pure form, then add volume by altering it while the form is still wet, and then carving lines to add movement to the volume of the form. I have a general idea of the end piece I am trying to attain, but I can only attain it by allowing each stage of the process to be influenced as it goes along.

9. How would you describe you work to a non - sighted person?
Not in words - I am not gifted that way. But I have laid many a piece into the hands of a non-sighted person. They always understand the work better than most, seeing the curve and line, the edge and volume, with their touch.

10. Do you have a favorite saying?
Yes. Andre Gide said, "Pay attention to the form only. Emotion will come spontaneously. A perfect dwelling always finds an inhabitant." So, I try to create perfect dwellings.

11. What are your goals for your work in the next few years?
I imagine I will keep trying to push the limits of the porcelain. Carve more away. Discover new patterns. I have been throwing some larger vessels out of stoneware. I want to continue my exploration of the interaction of scales, from miniature to floor vases. Certainly the possibilities are endless.