Liliana Lines

Artist Statement

Clay is only created under certain circumstances. Tectonic plates interacted in a way that pushed one area of land upward. Then, the wind and rain worked to weather and erode that protruding land into fine bits. Those bits had to be carried by the river until it slowed enough for the tiny bits to settle. Finally, someone had to find all those deposited bits somewhere in a current riverbed or as the remnants of rivers past, harvest them, treat them, and turn them into clay. When we make pottery, the process doesn’t start that day; it starts thousands or millions of years ago. As we tell stories with pottery, we connect to the story of the Earth.
When I make objects out of clay, I want the story of the object to continue, and to be a little interesting. That is why I’m drawn to creating functional work: I want my pieces to be used and enjoyed, not just visually but tactilely as well. Ceramic objects are meant to be held in the same way that houses are meant to be lived in. As I create a vessel, I think about both what it will hold and who will hold it.
The main reason I work with clay is that I just can’t keep my hands off the stuff. My grandmother was a potter, and though I never met her, I suspect she was the same way. Making pottery on the wheel in almost the same way she used to makes me feel connected to my ancestors. We spend so much time nowadays in a digital no-man’s-land, and I find that making pottery grounds me in time and space. Painting maps on my work has been the next logical step toward conceptualizing myself as part of the larger geographical place where I create.