On Aug. 27, the Ackland Art Museum hosted a panel with three local ceramicists titled, "Artist Conversation: Radical Ceramicists in North Carolina." The panel was part of a series of events the Ackland designed to engage outside artists in dialogue about the museum's temporary exhibit, "Radical Clay."
"Radical Clay" highlights the work of female ceramicists from Japan. Lillian Rodriguez, the head of interpretive resources at the museum, said the demographic has been historically marginalized from the art form.
Hitomi Shibata, one of the panelists, grew up in Japan and was trained in Japanese and East Asian pottery before coming to the U.S. with her husband. When speaking about her experiences in Japan, she said that it was difficult to find work in the 1990s because studios did not want to hire females.
“Women were always eliminated from the stage,” Shibata said.
Shibata said most of the works in the exhibition were contemporary ceramic pieces, not pottery. Unlike ceramics, pottery is primarily meant for function and remains dominated by men.
The gender discrimination women faced in ceramics was not limited to Japan. Isys Hennigar, a panelist and UNC alumna, said that until the early 20th century in North Carolina, female artists were only allowed to be decorators, not master ceramicists.
Despite the challenges women in many ceramics communities face, the practice of their art endures all around the world. Shibata recently attended a conference in Brazil and said that every continent has its own unique pottery and communities of artists.
One of the topics emphasized in the Ackland's panel was how ceramic pieces reflect where they were made. Hennigar, who grew up in North Carolina and Georgia, features the South's landscape in her works.
“There are a lot of contradictions in that, [the South] is one of extreme beauty and abundance and, especially in the rural places I've lived, this is sort of symbolic abundance alongside darker undertones of labor abuse and ecological exploitation,” Hennigar said.
Rodriguez, who served as the moderator of the event, said she appreciated that the artists featured in the panel talked about ceramic making as something requiring local community.
At Shibata’s kiln in Seagrove, N.C. — which has the largest community of potters in the U.S. — the laborious ceramic-making process helps artists build community.
Shibata follows traditional ceramic making practices by using a wood kiln to fire clay at a very high temperature. The process requires artists to assist one another by taking shifts to continually attend to the fire.
Even for Hennigar, who does not use a traditional kiln, having a local community is something she cannot work without.
After the panel, Rodriguez said that although the artists worked in the same medium, their final pieces were very different. Jessica Dupuis, a panelist from Chapel Hill and UNC alumna, makes abstract wall hangings from ceramic shards. In contrast, Hennigar describes her work as vessel sculptures, whereas Shibata makes simpler pottery with intricate patterns and glazes.
“Thirty years ago, when I was a young artist in Japan I faced some problems, but 30 years later I see very great work in North Carolina made by Japanese female artists," Shibata said.
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