“I always second-guess the students when they come into class. I look at them, I’m like, ‘What are you doing here? Are you nuts? Run away — you may like this!’”
That’s Annabeth Rosen, who has held the Robert Arneson Endowed Chair at UC Davis since 1997 and has taught ceramic art at the college level for 30 years, grasping for an explanation of the current resurgence of interest in ceramics among young artists.
“I say, if they sink to the bottom of the barrel — if gravity pulls them towards the earth, or whatever, and they’re stuck there — they’re done for. ‘Do a different thing if you can!’”
“And yet,” she continued, “making a real thing in the real world, whether you invented it and people recognize it as something to consider, or it’s some recognizable form — a statue or a bust or a relief or something functional — there is nothing so satisfying...”
Charles Desmarais
July 29, 2019
