Ceramics Monthly: Who is your ideal audience, and what relationship or conversations would you like for them to have with your work?
Carter Pasma: I make pots that are intended for use in everyday life, and I want everyone to be able to use and experience my work. I think that a relationship can be developed with the work through use, and an internal conversation starts with the person who uses the piece. The more someone interacts with a handmade object, the more they can discover about it. Which tool left what mark? How did the maker create that handle or get that surface or texture? I think this ongoing conversation helps strengthen the relationship between not only the user and the object, but also the user and the maker.
CM: How do you come up with the forms and surfaces that are prevalent in your work?
CP: My forms are inspired by quite a few things. I look at historical and contemporary work a lot, shapes in nature and architecture, and things I see in my day-to-day life. Utah State University has a great collection of pots around the studio, so I see those every day. I like to go to museums and look at their collections. I think the more places you can draw from, the better. I also tend to make a lot of things to fill holes in my cupboard.
My soda-fired surfaces are inspired by the color variation and spotting found on trout. The patterning on the backs of these fish reminds me of the way soda glaze flows in rivulets around the silica sand in my clay body, and the variation in the flashing marks from the flame remind me of all the variation in color on the fish. I use a celadon glaze that can be green in an oxidized firing or blue in a reduced firing, reminiscent to the pools of water these fish are found in on a cloudy versus sunny day.
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Carter Pasma, Logan, Utah
Ceramics Monthly: Who is your ideal audience, and what relationship or conversations would you like for them to have with your work?
Carter Pasma: I make pots that are intended for use in everyday life, and I want everyone to be able to use and experience my work. I think that a relationship can be developed with the work through use, and an internal conversation starts with the person who uses the piece. The more someone interacts with a handmade object, the more they can discover about it. Which tool left what mark? How did the maker create that handle or get that surface or texture? I think this ongoing conversation helps strengthen the relationship between not only the user and the object, but also the user and the maker.
CM: How do you come up with the forms and surfaces that are prevalent in your work?
CP: My forms are inspired by quite a few things. I look at historical and contemporary work a lot, shapes in nature and architecture, and things I see in my day-to-day life. Utah State University has a great collection of pots around the studio, so I see those every day. I like to go to museums and look at their collections. I think the more places you can draw from, the better. I also tend to make a lot of things to fill holes in my cupboard.
My soda-fired surfaces are inspired by the color variation and spotting found on trout. The patterning on the backs of these fish reminds me of the way soda glaze flows in rivulets around the silica sand in my clay body, and the variation in the flashing marks from the flame remind me of all the variation in color on the fish. I use a celadon glaze that can be green in an oxidized firing or blue in a reduced firing, reminiscent to the pools of water these fish are found in on a cloudy versus sunny day.
To learn more, follow @cartersclay on Instagram.
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