The audio file for this article was produced by the Ceramic Arts Network staff and not read by the author.
Shetland, an archipelago composed of around 100 islands—fewer than twenty of which are inhabited—sits around 100 miles northwest of mainland Scotland. It’s a rocky, elemental region, suspended in the throes of time, wind, and sea.
“Shetland is a hardy and resilient place, rich in craft skills and storytelling,” says artist Katie Rose Johnston, who grew up beachcombing along its rugged shores.
Now based in South Glasgow, where she works out of a garden studio, Johnston draws on her childhood in Shetland in her studio practice. “Exposed sea cliffs, hummocky fields, the blunt, beehive forms of Iron Age brochs, and the sheltered enclaves of prehistoric settlements all find themselves somewhere beneath the surface of the ceramics I create,” she says. Tendrils of coral, veiny leaves, and woven nests meld natural forms with function.
Where it Begins
Introduced to ceramics while attending Glasgow School of Art, where she had access to a kiln for the first time, Johnston’s interest grew from the fundamentals—pinch pots and spoons—to fluid-like shapes of draped and folded clay. “The interest in handbuilding was there from the beginning as the possibilities of where the clay could lead you felt endless,” she says. “It could be smooth or textured, functional or abstract, quick or meticulously created.” She was hooked.
After graduating in 2017, Johnston founded MANIFESTO, a one-person studio emphasizing small-batch ceramics influenced by nature, archaeology, science, and the variegated, windswept expanses of Scotland. The name represented a groundwork for new ideas and a point of action, spurring connections with like-minded people.
Johnston’s research begins in the landscape, whether around her studio or on visits to the seashore, where she mudlarks for ancient artifacts and forages for inspiration from marine creatures, fossils, and remnants of prehistoric human presence.
She picks up wave-strewn specimens and plucks dried stems, considering their array of shapes, textures, and habitats. She often experiments with wild glaze materials and clays she collects in small amounts.
During a visit to The Hunterian in Glasgow, Scotland’s oldest public museum, the artist chanced upon a vitrine tucked away in the rear of the museum. Encased among a selection of insect and bird nests from around the world, a termite mound had been cut into a cross-section, exposing its elaborate network of tunnels and compartments that the creatures use for ventilation and navigation.
Blurring Form and Function
Johnston likens her impression of the termite mound to encountering “a Wunderkammer from an alternate universe.” The multiplicity of chambers and recesses inspired an ongoing series of sculptural pieces she calls Curiosity Clouds, which function like miniature shelving units or vessels with numerous niches. These works tenderly embrace accumulations of natural things, returning to the artist’s fascination with collecting tidbits like feathers, stones, or shells on her walks.
Johnston enjoys treading the boundary between form and function. “A large part of this comes from play, where for a long time I loved to draw and build imaginary worlds: creating cafés for squirrels in tree trunks or mulling over the logistics
of a blackbird’s taxi service,” she says. In these imaginary worlds, she enjoyed designing every aspect of her characters’ surroundings, from designing their food packaging to blending their miniature furnishings with the natural
world.
MANIFESTO elegantly merges sculptural, decorative, and functional wares that bring nature and history together in a contemporary aesthetic. The Curiosity Clouds take shape from Scarva Earthstone Terracotta Crank Clay, which Johnston forms intuitively
into structures of varying sizes and shapes. She works from the center outward, each one developing its own unique size and appearance before she coats them in slip to achieve a range of earthy hues.
“Arranging found objects in each compartment is where my heart sings,” Johnston says of the Curiosity Clouds. “It allows me to return to childlike play: imagining each one as a miniature museum, choosing the exhibits for each
room, and thinking about how the next curator will fill them with their own collection.”
Further Curiosities
Titles like Pepper Dulse, Lion’s Mane, or Shepherd’s Purse reference seaweed, fungi, or botanicals. Similarly, her Wall Nests series draws upon the varied silhouettes of bird nests and beehives, highlighting slightly
more dense, mysterious enclosures. These forms “make me think of how a Wunderkammer might look in a world where insects are the presiding species,” she says.
During the past three years, since she began making the Curiosity Clouds, a range of offshoot ideas have taken hold in the studio. Awed by organisms viewed under a microscope, images of shells spotted in a biology textbook, or the wide array
of seaweed and plant fronds, she allows nature’s influences and the material to take the lead.
Following a summer spent visiting the Northwest coast of Scotland, Johnston began making a series that intentionally departed from her other work. Her Kelp Boxes are made using seaweed collected from a remote beach. Mixed with mussel shells,
a byproduct of her kitchen and originally harvested from Loch Fyne, the seaweed was burned to ash and then used as a raw material in the glaze-making process. “The result was a wild, textured glaze that mottled between sage green and ochre brown,
depending on how thickly the glaze was applied,” she says.
Found materials lend themselves to a range of experiments, like a slip coating she made from clay gathered from her favorite beach. She retains the small pebbles and roots that she describes as “elemental to the place they were found,” and
the mica-rich clay produces a metallic shimmer on the surface. Johnston embraces the potential for unique combinations and surprise outcomes, fascinated by the range of geological and botanical phenomena around the region that combine in original
ways.
Across Scotland, evidence of human occupation can be traced back thousands of years, from ancient settlements and fortifications to megalithic circles and mysterious artifacts. Johnston’s series of Arrowhead Vessels nods to the fundamentally
hands-on task of prehistoric toolmakers who sharpened flints through a process known as flintknapping. Blades and arrowheads could be fashioned by methodically flaking off bits of stone, evidence of which turns up at archaeological sites where the
discarded flakes of stone were left in place after the makers’ work was completed.
Johnston also recently participated in a residency at Shiro Oni Studios in Japan, where she focused on wood firing. Inspired by Japanese table service, the experience spurred a series of dishes and platters shaped like petals and leaves she found during
her travels. “The special part of working with clay is the community that surrounds it,” Johnston says. “The people who are interested in clay or who create ceramics are particularly funny, caring, and engaging.”
The work of MANIFESTO synthesizes the deep past and our contemporary experience, focusing on the fundamental qualities of handmade objects and foraged materials while considering our ancestry, what makes a home, how we live today, and how conversation
pieces can connect us.
the authorKate Mothes is an independent writer and art curator based in Northeast Wisconsin. She is the founder of Young Space, a platform for contemporary art, along with its sibling publication, Dovetail, which focuses on intersections between visual art and place. Her writing has appeared in Selvedge
Magazine
, Arts Midwest’s Creativity News Desk, and regularly on Colossal in her role as editor.
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The audio file for this article was produced by the Ceramic Arts Network staff and not read by the author.
Shetland, an archipelago composed of around 100 islands—fewer than twenty of which are inhabited—sits around 100 miles northwest of mainland Scotland. It’s a rocky, elemental region, suspended in the throes of time, wind, and sea. “Shetland is a hardy and resilient place, rich in craft skills and storytelling,” says artist Katie Rose Johnston, who grew up beachcombing along its rugged shores.
Now based in South Glasgow, where she works out of a garden studio, Johnston draws on her childhood in Shetland in her studio practice. “Exposed sea cliffs, hummocky fields, the blunt, beehive forms of Iron Age brochs, and the sheltered enclaves of prehistoric settlements all find themselves somewhere beneath the surface of the ceramics I create,” she says. Tendrils of coral, veiny leaves, and woven nests meld natural forms with function.
Where it Begins
Introduced to ceramics while attending Glasgow School of Art, where she had access to a kiln for the first time, Johnston’s interest grew from the fundamentals—pinch pots and spoons—to fluid-like shapes of draped and folded clay. “The interest in handbuilding was there from the beginning as the possibilities of where the clay could lead you felt endless,” she says. “It could be smooth or textured, functional or abstract, quick or meticulously created.” She was hooked.
After graduating in 2017, Johnston founded MANIFESTO, a one-person studio emphasizing small-batch ceramics influenced by nature, archaeology, science, and the variegated, windswept expanses of Scotland. The name represented a groundwork for new ideas and a point of action, spurring connections with like-minded people.
Johnston’s research begins in the landscape, whether around her studio or on visits to the seashore, where she mudlarks for ancient artifacts and forages for inspiration from marine creatures, fossils, and remnants of prehistoric human presence. She picks up wave-strewn specimens and plucks dried stems, considering their array of shapes, textures, and habitats. She often experiments with wild glaze materials and clays she collects in small amounts.
During a visit to The Hunterian in Glasgow, Scotland’s oldest public museum, the artist chanced upon a vitrine tucked away in the rear of the museum. Encased among a selection of insect and bird nests from around the world, a termite mound had been cut into a cross-section, exposing its elaborate network of tunnels and compartments that the creatures use for ventilation and navigation.
Blurring Form and Function
Johnston likens her impression of the termite mound to encountering “a Wunderkammer from an alternate universe.” The multiplicity of chambers and recesses inspired an ongoing series of sculptural pieces she calls Curiosity Clouds, which function like miniature shelving units or vessels with numerous niches. These works tenderly embrace accumulations of natural things, returning to the artist’s fascination with collecting tidbits like feathers, stones, or shells on her walks.
Johnston enjoys treading the boundary between form and function. “A large part of this comes from play, where for a long time I loved to draw and build imaginary worlds: creating cafés for squirrels in tree trunks or mulling over the logistics of a blackbird’s taxi service,” she says. In these imaginary worlds, she enjoyed designing every aspect of her characters’ surroundings, from designing their food packaging to blending their miniature furnishings with the natural world.
MANIFESTO elegantly merges sculptural, decorative, and functional wares that bring nature and history together in a contemporary aesthetic. The Curiosity Clouds take shape from Scarva Earthstone Terracotta Crank Clay, which Johnston forms intuitively into structures of varying sizes and shapes. She works from the center outward, each one developing its own unique size and appearance before she coats them in slip to achieve a range of earthy hues.
“Arranging found objects in each compartment is where my heart sings,” Johnston says of the Curiosity Clouds. “It allows me to return to childlike play: imagining each one as a miniature museum, choosing the exhibits for each room, and thinking about how the next curator will fill them with their own collection.”
Further Curiosities
Titles like Pepper Dulse, Lion’s Mane, or Shepherd’s Purse reference seaweed, fungi, or botanicals. Similarly, her Wall Nests series draws upon the varied silhouettes of bird nests and beehives, highlighting slightly more dense, mysterious enclosures. These forms “make me think of how a Wunderkammer might look in a world where insects are the presiding species,” she says.
During the past three years, since she began making the Curiosity Clouds, a range of offshoot ideas have taken hold in the studio. Awed by organisms viewed under a microscope, images of shells spotted in a biology textbook, or the wide array of seaweed and plant fronds, she allows nature’s influences and the material to take the lead.
Following a summer spent visiting the Northwest coast of Scotland, Johnston began making a series that intentionally departed from her other work. Her Kelp Boxes are made using seaweed collected from a remote beach. Mixed with mussel shells, a byproduct of her kitchen and originally harvested from Loch Fyne, the seaweed was burned to ash and then used as a raw material in the glaze-making process. “The result was a wild, textured glaze that mottled between sage green and ochre brown, depending on how thickly the glaze was applied,” she says.
Found materials lend themselves to a range of experiments, like a slip coating she made from clay gathered from her favorite beach. She retains the small pebbles and roots that she describes as “elemental to the place they were found,” and the mica-rich clay produces a metallic shimmer on the surface. Johnston embraces the potential for unique combinations and surprise outcomes, fascinated by the range of geological and botanical phenomena around the region that combine in original ways.
Across Scotland, evidence of human occupation can be traced back thousands of years, from ancient settlements and fortifications to megalithic circles and mysterious artifacts. Johnston’s series of Arrowhead Vessels nods to the fundamentally hands-on task of prehistoric toolmakers who sharpened flints through a process known as flintknapping. Blades and arrowheads could be fashioned by methodically flaking off bits of stone, evidence of which turns up at archaeological sites where the discarded flakes of stone were left in place after the makers’ work was completed.
Johnston also recently participated in a residency at Shiro Oni Studios in Japan, where she focused on wood firing. Inspired by Japanese table service, the experience spurred a series of dishes and platters shaped like petals and leaves she found during her travels. “The special part of working with clay is the community that surrounds it,” Johnston says. “The people who are interested in clay or who create ceramics are particularly funny, caring, and engaging.”
The work of MANIFESTO synthesizes the deep past and our contemporary experience, focusing on the fundamental qualities of handmade objects and foraged materials while considering our ancestry, what makes a home, how we live today, and how conversation pieces can connect us.
the author Kate Mothes is an independent writer and art curator based in Northeast Wisconsin. She is the founder of Young Space, a platform for contemporary art, along with its sibling publication, Dovetail, which focuses on intersections between visual art and place. Her writing has appeared in Selvedge Magazine , Arts Midwest’s Creativity News Desk, and regularly on Colossal in her role as editor.
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