Samantha Longley is a ceramic artist from Minneapolis; her porcelain ware is handmade on the potter's wheel and given a unique twist...literally. The soft movement, individual to each piece, is gently and purposefully given while the work is fresh on the wheel. Other objects are carefully cut, carved, twisted and shaped for the sake of play with porcelain and delicateness. Her work is an exploration of form and a celebration of beauty in the imperfect.
Statement
I make objects both functional and sculptural as an exploration and play with form. These objects are reminiscent of organic shapes and forms found in nature with a Wabi Sabi influence and ethereal tone.
My aesthetic finds inspiration in patterns and movement in nature and life: ebbs and flows; joy and suffering; the change of seasons; life, death, rebirth; inhale, exhale; the full spectrum of beauty in life.
When I reflect on these rhythms, how moments and seasons are strung together, I see the undulating line traveling through highs and lows, hills and valleys, and think about the string; the sustaining current of energy in and through all life that also connects us to nature and all living things. This leads me to muse on transcendence.
My true impetus lies within this guiding question: What is it like when physical and spiritual meet?
When I encounter places of pristine beauty in nature, struck by awe and rendered still, I suddenly feel the the outside beauty seeping in, cutting tenderly through the baggage of life and making the heart feel alive and overwhelmed with wonder. That same transcendence will spark in unforseen moments deep within myself, or in a moment of connection with another human.
I seek these mysterious, contrasting yet harmonious interactions, the intertwining of flesh and spirit, and hope to capture the essence of these experiences within my work. It is an endeavor appropriately explored with a medium that has physicality. My other aesthetic considerations, such as negative space, line, and color, explore how to represent the nature of these divine interactions.
The vessel in connection to the body compels me to continue fervently using the potter’s wheel as the origination of most of work. Function also plays the important role of accessibility in my work; interaction and relationship with a physical object play on my musings. I hope to create a unique, quiet and satisfactory interaction, as well as space for careful, slow consideration of every twist and curve and line and cut within my objects.
All my visual decisions and play are influenced by the sine curve of energy that I see echoed in nature and can feel in life; it harks to transcendence and speaks of beauty that is most true and more compelling when it contains depths, meanderings, bumps, and scars.