Spotlight: Nick Joerling shifts gears Techno File - Ceramic Arts Daily

Moons and Forests
In the late 1960s Takaezu added moons to her repertoire. These
are constructed pieces, made of joined hemispheres, the seams of
which sometimes show clearly and sometimes are either smoothed
away or obscured by the vast range of surface treatments she elects.
They are never so perfect as to look mechanical and may range
from 20 to almost 30 inches in diameter.
These works are sometimes shown in groups (continuing her interest
in quantities of things) on a bed of gravel, or each suspended
in its own knotted hammock. In both cases they are understood
as objects, not as images or illusions. In neither setting is a group
of orbs naturalistic, although the gravel itself may evoke a lunar
landscape or a lava bed in Hawai‘i.
Another important series is smaller in number of works but
they are memorable for their size. Takaezu joined ceramic cylinders
into objects as tall as 8 feet, set as many as ten of them into gravel
or sand grounds, and called them Tree Forms. The inspiration for
some of these installations, such as Lava Forest (1975) was Hawaiian
forests burned out by volcanic eruptions and lava flows.
Others have the brooding solemnity of old-growth woods, such as
Tree-Man Forest (1982/87). The cylinders may evoke gargantuan
bamboo because of their segmentation, but more generally speak
of lifeless tree trunks. While her color range is subdued—generally
a variety of earth colors and black—her
painterly splotches and drips suggest
wounds, both the slow damage
Closed forms,
glazed porcelain.
42 march 2011 www.ceramicsmonthly.org
of time and the quick destruction of natural catastrophe. The
solemnity of these elements makes them less fragments of living
nature than memorials to its loss. These, too, make an implicit
environmental statement by overwhelming the viewer with the
presence of these relics.
Extremes of Scale
Takaezu’s retirement from teaching in 1992 was followed by a burst
of productivity. She was offered the use of a car kiln at Skidmore
College in upstate New York, where she could fire very large pots,
and so her tall closed forms grew, ranging up to 5½ feet in height,
and up to 2 feet in diameter. These massive forms, although
sometimes taller than she is and broader than any person would
be (especially the ones that swell as they rise), nevertheless speak of
human stance. One looks for explanations for this conviction: they
are the size that a person could hide in, or they might represent a
person swaddled, caped, or cocooned. Probably the feeling arises
merely from their vertical orientation and the proportions of height
to width of base. Or maybe it’s just one of the instances of human
beings looking for themselves in anything with even the slightest
and most partial resemblance.
In any case, these objects allude to living forms, rather than the
dead ones of the Tree Forms, and thus have vitality even when the
colors are subtle or dark. These large closed forms have become
Takaezu’s most reverently appreciated works. Among the many
magnificent painting/sculptures of this type the Star Series,
which has been maintained as a group and is now in the
collection of the Racine Art Museum, is the masterwork.
It consists of fourteen closed forms, most over 5 feet