“Process, Procedure, Presence”
Creativity as a concept pulls truth from both the left and right sides of the universe; it’s a little magic and a little mechanics. Some artists skew towards raw, Promethean creativity, and others toward more iterative or rule-based modes. There’s no right answer because art has “answers.” But while an artist’s journey has no destination; they will tell you there’s a place, or “pocket,” that combines the perfect ratios of left/right; objective/subjective; imagination/planning; and conscious/subconscious thinking. And while in that place, making artwork feels like ecstasy. It feels like it’s making itself, and that the artist becomes almost a pure medium.
The artists in “Process, Procedure, and Presence” each live and make right down the middle of this wonderful artistic duality, producing magical and uncanny objects combining rules and techniques with inspired and dreamy visions. Each piece in the show is part chemistry and part alchemy, arriving at the most fertile place in the universe: the edge of two things that don’t ever resolve.
Fused in Fire
By Michael Ware
"During a trip to the East Coast, I had a sublime experience in Adirondack Park in Upstate New York. I was overwhelmed by a powerful presence of beauty. Walking through the woods the earth felt alive. The terrain is relatively untouched and has an intangible energy flowing through it. The landscape had the power to draw me in with both its vastness and little details. I was presented with an infinite number of worlds within a larger one. The trip caused me to consider how the landscape originated, not just what it looked like. This investigation was the catalyst for my current work."
The resulting ceramic sculptures focus on the transformations that occur in the natural world. Primarily concentrating on the geologic transformations that shape the landscape. Unlike the landscape, which can appear permanent and fixed, the tremendous forces behind its creation are full of energy and life. What if that spirit morphed into geologic amalgamations of ceramic objects?
Michael Ware was born in Montpelier Vermont and has lived in many different regions of the United States throughout his life. He earned his Master of Fine Art from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee in 2015. Before that, he traveled extensively throughout North America. Those travels are the inspiration for his abstract sculptures that reference both the landscapes and the geological forces that created them. Michael has shown his work both regionally and nationally. His work is in many collections throughout the country including Rhode Island School of Art and Bradley University.
