Andrew P. Phillips

Artist Statement

I came to ceramics later in life, about ten years ago. While working through a life crisis, my counselor told me I had to do something with other people that summer. I told her I'd rather stick a fork in my eye. I arrived home from work one Friday night, entered my empty house, and found an art center brochure in the mail. I always thought it would be cool to learn how to throw a pot. I randomly, and reluctantly, enrolled in a class. I soon found class offered a refuge, a place of focus, a place of letting go, a place to empty. I learned the basic wheel sequence - center, open, raise. This resonated. It was a broader message: how to adapt to unwanted change. I learned this in a room full of others attempting the same. Though I sought solitude in the work, to my surprise, I found community.

My ceramics practice focuses on form, shape, and subtle detail rather than elaborate ornamentation. I pursue pieces that hint toward classic forms, with a bit of whimsy, and that play on the edge between functionality and statement objects. This interest extends from my professional training and continuing practice as an architect and educator in the Philadelphia region over the last thirty years. There is a dialogue between these two practices that continues to amuse, puzzle, delight, and inform one another.

Pieces are gas, soda, and - lately - wood kiln fired. Glazing techniques are usually multi-layered with a base glaze, a rim glaze, and a second full glaze. Wood kiln pieces are always single glazes, if any, to celebrate the dance between the raw clay and ash. Prior to glazing, I sketch a section of each piece in my glaze book, with details of the rim and foot. This logs how each piece is finished. No two are the same. Each piece includes a card with a printed scan of its sketch.