Still Lives: Emotions and Human Behaviors Translated Through Ceramics

Julia LaMonica
The still life can represent many things, but what about when they represent life? Through symbolism, allegory and juxtaposition, this genre can cause the viewer to experience specific emotions, feelings and relate with human behaviors. This is to say that not all art does this directly. This exhibition will focus on still lives that evoke emotional responses toward the issues that make us human. The quality of being human can be conveyed in numerous ways: through form, color, materials and symbols. One could base the thought of humanness on culture, skin colour, emotions or behavior. Several Alfred ceramic sculpture graduates explore these issues of human behavior and identity. These artists specify in different areas; emotions and feelings, identity vs. culture and gender and the pure trait of being human and what that means. The form that they all have in common is the still life. This idea of still life is fascinating because it embodies notions of our humanity but in abstract form. In this study I inquire into the ways in which artists illustrate a moment is frozen in time but also preserve that moment as a doorway or portal to access. The method of stilling human life is where the entry point lies.

Claire Hedden is an Alfred MFA, ceramic artist that uses colours, materials, positions and implied movement to convey a specific emotional response to a particular issue. She creates situations or creature-like forms to covey her thoughts. Her work is her representation of emotions and behaviors, frozen, showing the viewer the climactic point in which the emotion arises in a situation. Although her work is a product of issues she is going through or thinking about, it is not the goal of her work to convey that exact idea that made her create the work, but rather, to convey the raw emotion that is underlying the idea and the piece.
The piece Fatty by Claire Hedden is a piece that is a good example of her use of position, colour and other materials to illustrate a specific feeling. This piece is about three feet high, leaning against a wall of the gallery. It is a ceramic sculpture that looks as if it is in five different pieces stacked on top of each other. These pieces combined hint at a fat figure, while the individual pieces illustrate what could be fat rolls on an obese person. The figure itself is not entirely human like. The “head” of the piece resembles the bump a cartoon character would get when getting hit on the head. The colour of the tip of the head speaks further about a bruised nub, because it is a purple reddish colour like a bruise. The colour fades leading into the white of the rest of the head and body suggesting at a throbbing effect. This sculpture has no arms or legs making the “Fatty” seem helpless. It is sitting on a board that protrudes out from underneath the sculpture about four feet. There is something rolled up and red underneath the board acting as a fulcrum for the board. This fat being is too heavy for this board to be balanced, so it remains helpless and injured against the wall. Its fat rolls seem like a hindrance to it getting up, if it wanted to. The colour on the head of the piece gives the understanding that this thing has been injured and perhaps a bit confused due to the injury on its implied head. Due to the positioning of the figure, I feel like the figure is conveying the feeling of being too depressed to move. The mass of the figure without arms and legs and the slope of the board seems like it is struggling with itself, waiting for something to put it back on its feet.
Alec Schramek is also an Alfred MFA that focuses in ceramics. For Alec’s MFA show, he created realistic male figures. His work focuses on the idea of romanticizing the human experience. His work depicted what we would think of as simple human behaviors. Part of the drive for this depiction seems to be an interest in the human behavior, but also an interest in how cultures interpret different behaviors. How can one find their identity in a world based on subjectivity?
The series of ceramic figures by Alec Schramek seem to be indicative of human behavior. There are six male figures in a line, and if read left to right, looks as if they are steps of a person getting ready. The first figure is nude, leaning against the gallery wall holding a cup in their right hand. The second is also nude shaving their face and is peering into space as if looking into a mirror. The third figure is sitting on a bed, unclothed and holding a shoe up to his foot as if to put it on. The fourth figure is on a bed also, gripping the edge, gazing at the floor as if thinking, or feeling upset. This figure is the first to be wearing clothing; boxers. This is also where you begin to see a mirroring effect happening with the figures. Three and four are almost back to back facing the figures. The fifth is wearing pants, but no shoes and no shirt. His hand is up to his face, also mirroring figure number two that was shaving his face. The last figure is fully dressed with a cup in his hand, mirroring the first figure holding the cup. Taking a better look at these figures, I realized that the first three have a different face than the last three. This could be telling of these figures being individual, but the mirroring effect shows that they are not, because they take part in this routine of getting ready. They are the same in this aspect. It could be saying that, although individual people can be seen as different, many take part in the same behaviors. It generalized the human experience so we can all relate. A couple of the figures look sad and some look more contented. This just reinforces the idea of these pieces asking questions about themselves and allowing for a mass of people to be able to relate. The behaviors in these pieces make me empathetic towards them as if they were real people and make me feel appreciative of everyday human activity.
Another Alfred graduate; Cristina Cordova, works with ceramics using specific colours as Claire does, but with more recognizable figures. Rather than abstracted forms, Cristina does statues and statuettes of the human form, behaving in specific ways. Her objective is to illustrate cultural issues and issues related with gender or individual identity by using colours and symbols, to convey the issue and in turn, the emotions that come along with a particular situation.
The pieces by Cristina Cordova entitled “ 7 Black Figures in Movement Sequence” are a series of seven black female ceramic figures lined up on a wall in the corner of a gallery. There are four on the left side of the wall and three on the other wall. Each figure is on a small platform that is also ceramic. There is a layering of pieces, first a disk attatched to the wall holding the figure up, then a green striped disk that is thicker than the first, finally, a cloud or sack like “pillow” that the figure is posed on. The first figure is laying outstretched, a bit uncomfortable looking, as if she is in the middle of a movement. The second figure is a continuation of the first figures movement, but is still outstretched, but positioned slightly more upright. The third figure is crouched in a sitting position, no longer outstretched, but her feet have moved under her body. The fourth is starting to stand with more of a determined look on her face. Number five is still crouched, legs bent, but moving into a standing position. Her legs are still bent at the knees and her back is still slightly arched. The sixth figure is standing holding some of the pillowy cloud she was sitting on in her hands. She is looking out at the viewer. The seventh figure is has the cloud like substance now around her waist and she is standing with her hand out, palm down, in an almost dignified way. I have a hard time deciphering this piece’s symbolic meaning, but if I look at it with a purely emotional response, I get the feeling of transcendence. The sequence of movement towards a standing position on a cloud like form causes me to feel transcendence or growth. However, I feel that the race of these figures must be important also. This could be speaking of the African status in our culture or others, or the colour of the figures’ skin could have a different symbolic meaning entirely.

While these artists are working with basically the same material in several different ways, there are similarities deeper than the material that really solidify the theme. All three artist work with figure; Alec is the basis by creating his pretty literal male figures. The texture of the figures are stylized, but they still are quite realistic. Cristina also represents the human. In many of her pieces, the texture of the surface is similar to that of Alec’s work. Although many of the situations and atmospheres the figures appear in are some what fantastical, many of her figures are realistic in proportions and body shape. Claire works with figure in a different way than the other two artists. Claire’s figures are not necessarily human, but they take on a creature like status in the piece, so you recognize them as being something that has feeling.
Claire works with colours to help convey her point in her work, whether the colours are used to symbolize emotions or create atmospheres. Cristina also works with colours in this way. I feel that Cristina’s pieces are not as straight forward. Claire, although she does abstract sculpture work, she uses symbols that are easy to understand, working more with implied movement and the figure teamed with colour and other materials to convey something that is pretty basic; an emotion. Cristina’s work uses many symbols with colour and situations, but her objective is a bit more complex in content, so to try and talk about the issues of a certain culture through symbols that are a bit ambiguous, could possibly be misinterpreted. Alec does not use colour in his figures, they are monotone beige. This is not preventing conveying his idea; his work does not really need colour. His work is showing basic human behaviors. There is no need for symbols because he is showing them realistically and less abstractly.
These artists also relate because they are all trying to make the viewer understand their message through a narrative of symbols or sequence. More importantly, these pieces seem to relate more to the viewer through empathy than a literal, concrete message. With Claire it is important to her that she allows the viewer to understand some important facets of her work so that they can feel what she felt or wanted them to feel, readily in her work. Alec has an underlying objective, but it is the feeling of the figures you feel and the comparison created there that hint at what he was thinking. In Cristina’s work, she uses these figures to convey her theme, but in the end, what I am left with is an emotion or feeling based on colours and expressions that I pull out of the work that hints at the underlying issues when looking at her pieces.
An artist I feel relates to the theme these artists are striking is Paul Cadmus. His pieces “The Seven Deadly Sins” relate to the theme of conveying human nature, however, he does an extreme, grotesque portrayal of the seven deadly sins in which humans commit. He does this with images of each sin in an extreme way to illustrate the horrific nature of each sin. I feel this relates to the commonality of allegory and the illustration of human tendencies.

Claire’s work is really the basis for all the other work to relate. In many cases, especially seen in Fatty, Claire’s main goal is to illustrate a particular feeling or emotion. Her work is made for people to understand the raw emotion, not necessarily the real situation that cause her to make this work. That is not the point as with art in many cases. It is not uncommon for artist’s main goal to be to alleviate themselves of feelings and tell the viewer about their particular situation. Claire’s work stands apart for this. When I interviewed her, she said she wishes for people to be able to empathize with each other and she wants to help inspire this in people. She feels that if someone can find these feelings through her work and discover compassion inside themselves they can grow to find compassion for each other. In her thesis, Claire states :
“I ask these questions of identity, aspiration, limitation and truth in my work to convey the struggles that shape our lives. Looking within enables the capacity to look outward with comprehension and empathy, inspiring a will to change.”[1]
She said in her piece, Fatty, her thoughts underlying the outcome were that of being “uninspired, stuck, trapped, helpless, defeated and waiting for something to propel me out of it, like in the cartoons when a character jumps on one end of a board and makes the other character go flying through the air.”[2] I feel her piece was very articulate in the point; however, I’m sure that there are some other interpretations of her art. Perhaps some one could see her work on a purely sculptural and aesthetic level, or maybe even humorous. It is plausible that “Fatty” could read as a cloud in some sort of other scenario. Her work consisting of mainly these “characters” could bring someone to a completely different story based on their own creative mind.
Alec’s figures were made following his main question “Can we value our individuality as truth when it is based on a romantic notion of human experience?” He is interested in the complex issue of the idealized human experience. A big issue he brought up was questioning cultural meanings behind different behaviors and practices that we would think of as normal everyday things. The stances of the figures, the general positions, were supposed to be mirrored. In the interview he spoke of his interest in the differences between cultures and what and an “identity” in one culture could be a completely different identity in another culture. He said that the line drawn where his pieces were “mirrored”, if looked at as one entity, hints at his main question.[3] I feel that if these pieces are read as a separate entity, they also get to the point. His use of figures as a narration on cultural issues relates to the work of Kara Walker. Kara uses silhouetted figures to illustrate the aspects of human behavior that lean more towards the dark and morbid side. She creates these figures with expressions and actions that are all to clear of their meaning. Her work is very much about the roles different people play in different areas of the culture. She draws this theme from her role as an African American woman. Alec’s work is more on an aesthetically realistic side, however, his work also talks about human behavior and uses distinct body language that is easily readable. In comparison, he draws his themes from his role as an American male. What that really means is his main question.

I feel as if the work of Cristina is more allusive than that of the work Claire and Alec. In Cristina’s MFA thesis paper, she talks a great deal about her interests in gender identity and the way that culture plays a role in the way one identifies themselves. Also, she has a great interest in cultural issues and prejudices. All the pieces I have looked at of hers are extremely intriguing. There are clearly specific elements of the piece that colours are used in an intentional, symbolic way. There are obvious cultural and racial references. Facial expressions vary, trying to convey something, but still remaining mysterious. In her thesis, Cristina spoke of female forms having faces that could either be male or female, with no hair, as a narrative on gender identity.[4] This is apparent in her work, but I have a hard time moving past the aesthetic aspects. In her thesis, she also spoke of using colour symbolism and her underlying intention to talk about cultural issues and identity. I think it is obvious that she is trying to convey something along these lines, but I feel that there is an ambiguity that keeps the real meaning beyond arms reach. This is not necessarily a negative thing; it just leaves me with my initial emotion. I just keep fantasizing about what could be going on in each of her pieces, and they just leave me with different emotions to base the story off of.

In the book Still Life with Oysters and Lemon by Mark Doty, he talks about still lives as:
“…an art that points to the human by leaving the human out; nowhere visible, we’re everywhere. It is an art that points to meaning through wordlessness, that points to timelessness through things permanently caught in time…”[5]
He speaks of the intimacy between a human and a piece of art. How one can feel the emotion therein, and yet remain somewhat distant. He says that being human is to be both here and gone. Our identity lies in culture, emotions and things, but we feel we must look inward to find ourselves. This directly relates to the theme of the exhibition.
In Empathetic Vision: Affect, Trauma and Contemporary Art by Jill Bennett, the author starts out by saying that when we recall feelings that we have had in the past, they are not the actual feelings, but a representation. She goes on to say that trauma has resisted representation and can continue to be felt.
“Up until now, theorists of trauma and memory have paid relatively little attention to the visual and performing arts…In almost a concrete sense, much of the visual and performing arts evokes the possibility-for both the artist and viewer- of ‘being a spectator of one’s own feelings’.”[6]
She refers to emotions in art as:
“Sense memory operating through the body to produce a kind of ‘seeing truth’, rather than a ‘thinking truth’, registering the pain of memory as it is directly experienced, and communicating a level of bodily affect.”[7]
This is to say that we actually experience the feelings represented in some art, not as a thought but as a real emotional response. She uses Dennis Del Favero’s work “Parting Embrace” [8] to back up her claim. The images give the viewer a sense of confusion because there are images that are soft, that reflect passion, and then there are some that obviously traumatic and highly pornographic. These images are meant to convey the trauma of a young boy being sexually abused and they succeed in making the viewer feel the trauma.

The works I’ve selected for this exhibition stimulate the mind and body to experience emotions and feelings that are being conveyed in regards to human issues of culture, behaviors and internal struggles. The ways in which the artist go about reflecting these issues may vary, but they are all tied together with the medium and the form of still life. Although the artists go about conveying these feelings in differently, they all have an interest in identity and what it means to be human. This common ground is what sets these works apart from other still lives that are more geared towards looking at the beauty of everyday objects. In this case, the everyday object is the human experience and these artists create the still lives bring the viewer to the core of that experience. The still life in this context embodies an instance of human existence, timeless, yet limited to one moment. The area that surrounds the still life is a void; death. In this way, not only so these still lives show us our humanity, but they show us our mortality. This is the lesson of the still life;
“Still life. The deep pun hidden in the term: life with death in it, life after the knowledge of death, is, after all, still life.” [9]
Perhaps realizing this and the emotions evoked by these artworks can lead us to empathizing more with each other. We all share the human experience, and we are all tied to it, perhaps by living the lessons taught by these works, we can begin to appreciate life and empathize with others.



















Bibliography:

Hedden, Claire. Master Thesis, New York State College of Ceramics, 2007.

Cordova, Cristina. Master Thesis, New York State College of Ceramics, 2002.

Doty, Mark. Still Life with Lemons and Oysters, Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 2001.

Bennett, Jill. Empathetic Vision: Affect, Trauma and Contemporary Art, California: Stanford University Press, 2005.

[1] Claire Hedden, Master Thesis, New York State College of Ceramics, 2007.
[2] Claire Hedden, email message from artist, November 13,2009
[3] Alec Schramek, email message from artist, November 14, 2009.
[4] Cristina Cordova, Master Thesis, New York State College of Ceramics, 2002.
[5] Mark Doty, Still Life with Lemons and Oysters, (Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 2001), 66.
[6]Jill Bennett, Empathetic Vision: Affect, Trauma and Contemporary Art, (California: Stanford University Press, 2005), 23.
[7]Jill Bennett, Empathetic Vision: Affect, Trauma and Contemporary Art, (California: Stanford University Press, 2005), 26.
[8] Jill Bennett, Empathetic Vision: Affect, Trauma and Contemporary Art, (California: Stanford University Press, 2005), 28.
[9] Mark Doty, Still Life with Lemons and Oysters, (Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 2001), 69.