Emily S. Coleman,
Rainbows Landing Studios, Emigrant, Montana

Artist Statement:  

These pieces represent ceramic work done over a period of several years, recently at MSU, and formerly at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, where I studied with the residents and community students. I have been interested in the aesthetic and formalistic aspects of the human form and its reflection in the ceramic ware and sculpture since I began my art career at Montserrat College of Art.

In  returning once again to the theme of the goddess, I have recently developed through my work , a repertoire of human forms and pots. Pots and the figure have an affinity, as they echo and support each other in both utilitarian and aesthetic ways.  If our creations in art are to have a value beyond the mundane, our figures and pots need to reflect the numinous, as well as the useful.

In works such as Water Muse, the Snake Goddess Teapot, and the Kore sculptures, I am hoping to reflect and explore some measure of dignity and reverence for the female form. The connection between pots and persons is evident as we look into the kinds of people we revere. Looking back to antiquity, we see that this imagery grew out of our own human need to reproduce our image. But the unconscious is always at work here as we create these images of our psyches out of clay.