My work centers around the organic form. My bowls do not take on a machine-made symmetricity, or even the mechanically made near-symmetricity of the potter’s wheel. I pound out my bowl forms with my hands, placing, smearing, and beating the clay into the shape that I desire. Admittedly, after this step a sort of dichotomy creeps into my practice, because the process becomes very mechanical. I make plaster molds of my original bowl forms and then through the slip-casting process make near-identical casts with precisely even wall thicknesses. Dichotomy is a natural part of life, and I am not interested in each iteration of each bowl form being expressly unique. I consider the bowls as a group to be a ‘varied edition’, so to speak. I decorate the surface using printmaking techniques, with a strong emphasis on pattern in my overall design. I take common motifs from traditional and folk pottery and translate them into my own work. My hope is to create aesthetically pleasing pieces that reflect both nature and tradition to some degree and fit well into the home environment.

© Marita Chustak