Michael Schwegmann

My desire to make ceramics began after watching a professional potter at work on the potter’s wheel. A master potter looks like a magician as he transforms a lump of stuff into a beautiful shape. It takes a lot of skill and practice to have the kind of mastery that looks like magic. I wanted to have that mastery.

So I practiced. After a while I turned out some respectable shapes, but there is a lot more involved in ceramics than just making some shapes. These challenges include physical coordination, sensitivity to the drying and the stress points of a material that changes from the consistency of pudding to the hardness of rock, and a deluge of technical knowledge regarding chemical calculations, mineral properties, and firing atmospheres and protocols.

On top of the technical stuff, good ceramics requires creativity and an understanding of design. I have made pots for years, and I have always first regarded my work sculpturally, even when I have made “obviously” pots. This is to say, I am primarily concerned with my work having the right balance of form and surface, the attention to detail that an artist brings to his work. If I make a piece of functional pottery, such as a bowl or vase, then it should serve well or hold flowers beautifully, but I also want it to function as a presence of grace and mastery and good design.

I believe that the function of something I make is not complete if it only meets what we might consider the basics of hands-on utility. A plastic jug pours perfectly, is lightweight, transparent, extremely durable, and cheap. In many ways it is superior to a ceramic jug, and if we consider the basic utility of a jug, then a plastic jug renders handmade pottery obsolete. So why do I make a ceramic jug if the plastic one is superior?

One way I answer that question is to make unique ceramics that offer more in than just basic function. I have spent a lot of years remaking forms and trying to reinvent ideas about “pottery”, or at least adding my ideas to the conversation. Part of my intent is to provide beautiful well-designed and perhaps thought-provoking objects that people will use on a regular basis. I know that my life is richer with these kinds of objects in it.

Another way I address the question is by making things out of ceramic were never made as ceramic, such as hammers and shovels, paint cans, the guts of buildings, etc. I find beauty and interest in these things and I feel compelled to remake them out of clay. These things are immediately recognizable, though I want people to also recognize that they are hand-made from ceramic. They perhaps become icons, or things that ask questions about the items they represent. I don’t know all the answers to this idea yet, but it feels like the right direction for my work