Spotlight: Constants and Networks Malcolm Mobutu Smith

Appears in the March 2022 issue of Ceramics Monthly.

Ceramics Monthly: Are there any constants that you have relied on for inspiration or support throughout your career? 

Malcolm Mobutu Smith: Three interconnected urgencies inspire me daily: teaching, improvisation, and a hunger
for knowledge. 

In ceramics for almost 40 years, I’ve always been a bit ravenous for new things around me, be it new music, new art, and new students. I’m omnivorous for information and stimuli in the world in vectors as far afield as mathematics and poetry, comic books and jazz, hip hop and calligraphy, as well as art history. However, my primary inspiration comes from the students and colleagues that I’ve worked with past and present, near and far. Teaching thrills me. Working with people in the moment, in real time, creating pathways to navigate ideas, methods, and outcomes is incredibly rewarding. There are multiple ways into any idea, and that journey is an energizing conduit into thinking, into language, and into spaces for new possibilities. Creating these collaborative spaces can bring a special kind of inspiration, but it always takes an active investment of student and teacher alike to peer around the corners of a question or an idea. 

In my own work and teaching, I use improvisation to synthesize all of the sources of inspiration and information swirling around me. It allows me to take the long way around on the path and process of making. Sometimes it takes going to Florida to get to Detroit. This method of discovery governs my way in the studio. 

CM: What has helped you to build your career in ceramics, and what suggestions do you have for others?

MMS: From the beginning, my career in clay evolved directly from an incredible network of mentors. My teacher at Conestoga High School in Pennsylvania, Paul Bernhardt, was the first link in this network. As a single point of contact, Mr. Bernhardt connected me to places and people on my path from the Kansas City Art Institute to Penn State and on to Alfred University. I became a part of a lineage of wonderful mentors and teachers, and I have flourished in clay due to their nudges and challenges. They operated as guideposts and guardrails pointing out new opportunities and marking the path, making it clearer. Opportunities happen all the time, and when these doors appear, are stumbled upon, or get built, you must venture through. Mentors show us doors we didn’t know were there, support as us as we step toward them, and hand us off to the next. I’ve trusted this. 

A part of this venture through the doors must come from cultivating a “taking yourself to school attitude” each and every day. That sense of proactive agency in feeding ourselves, chasing ideas down rabbit holes, and enjoying the process builds the path we’re on. Additionally, staying connected with my peers, students, and mentors links the chain of knowledge, lubricates the gears of thinking, and shares a line of sight to collective knowing in our field. We too often sever or let links to our mentors atrophy, presuming a DIY imperative instead of continuing a dialog as we grow, but there are fascinating new levels of conversation to be traced by seeking consultation along your path at all stages of your career. We are not islands. 

Photo: Owyn Vernius Johnson Smith.