Noah Riedel

Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA

Title: Stem - Showing Vase - Hoop

Year of Creation: 2010

Glaze: Terra Sigillata and raw fluxes

Clay Body: Stoneware, cone 7 oxidation

Dimensions: Height 11.5 inches, Width 11.5 inches

Artist's Statement: Starting with the essential functional elements of familiar forms, I refine and recreate them in original, simple and meaningful structures. This approach sometimes adds complexity, other times it simplifies things. But in all cases, the process of dissection and restructuring is revealing to me. It leads me to think about those qualities most inherent to common forms, qualities that as often as not go unquestioned or are taken for granted. It is a designer's approach, as opposed to an aesthetician's. Beauty is as important to me as any other element of a design, but the beauty I'm after is spare. It's the thing itself in the economy of its form, not an elaboration.