CURRENT RESIDENT ARTISTS
MOLLY ALTMAN
September 2023 - August 2024
ABOUT THE WORK
Symmetry and chaos, ephemerality and ruthlessness, immediacy and age– these qualities of the natural world serve as guiding forces in my work’s process and aesthetic. Themes of environmental degradation, resilience, and impermanence are repeatedly evoked by my ceramic work, in which nature frequently steps beyond the role of inspiration and is brought into my studio to become a direct collaborator. My sculptural work often incorporates locally collected flora which I dip in porcelain and fire. Through this process, I deconstruct what is familiar—leaves, flowers, vines, grasses—reducing them to the roots of their forms, and then assemble them to create micro-environments which reflect their ecologies of origin. The work invites viewers to reframe their understandings of their natural environments and consider the fraught, symbiotic relationship between humanity and ecosystem. By vitrifying pieces of my surroundings, things otherwise predestined for decay at the hands of the seasons and of human-induced climate change, I am reminded of the impermanence of our fragile ecosystems. In this way, the work is a celebration, and also an act of preservation– of freezing a moment in time as our landscape currently stands, granting acknowledgement to the idea that it is more or less impermanent.
ABOUT MOLLY
Altman began working in clay in her hometown of Amherst, Massachusetts. In 2019, she obtained a BA in ceramics from Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont. Her experience includes an internship with Studio Potter Journal in Easthampton, Massachusetts, an apprenticeship to Noel Bailey in Waitsfield, Vermont, a position as a technical assistant to Kenyon Hansen at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine, and a production potter position at Mark of the Potter in Clarkesville, Georgia. She has made work as a resident artist at Green River Pottery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and at Recipiente Estudio in Mexico City. She was a current Artist in Residence at Cobb Mountain Art and Ecology in Loch Lomond, California before becoming a resident at the Carbondale Clay Center.
ASHLEY BANEGAS
September 2023 - August 2024
ABOUT THE WORK
My sculptures explore the milestones of physical development for which girls are solely unprepared because of insufficient education and cultural taboo. By avoiding these crucial moments that women experience, such as puberty, menstruation, and motherhood, we perpetuate an archaic and isolating idea of being a woman. My work highlights the awkward nature of these “rites of passage” that mark pivotal moments in a woman’s life and serve as a reminder of how little knowledge and support girls can be missing to face those experiences. With the knowledge of how vital guidance is at these turning points, I want my work to encourage conversations between young women and their communities about their bodies.
The dinner table is a critical place and a catalyst for these conversations. The purpose of my tableware is to take everyday gatherings and highlight how special this ritual is for us to support one another regularly. Using color, pattern, and texture to create a design reflecting the reality of life, which is messy, chaotic, and complicated, nothing must externally match or even make sense if the viewer has found inner stability and self-actualization.
My work serves to bring people together through a tablescape of abundant textures, colors and shapes that stimulate conversation of everyday trials and tribulations that we, as people, share. At my table, there is an open and standing invitation to all who welcome the discomfort, complexity, and beauty of being human. When we trust in natural processes, there is something genuine that, when safely witnessed, shares all its secrets.
ABOUT ASHLEY
Ashley Banegas recently settled in the Roaring Fork Valley of Colorado after accepting an artist residency at the Carbondale Clay Center. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Western New Mexico University, where she distilled her artistic motivations into communal dinnerware and figurative sculpture. Exploring relationships and human expression through body language and social gathering, art has always been a passion that drove Banegas to connect with creative communities. Her sculpting and wheel throwing processes are conceptually inspired by lineage, heirlooms, and antiques. She thrives upon the remanence of knowledge that has been handed down. Growing up in a small, quiet town led Banegas to value the relationships she had with older community members as well as the richness of history and heritage attached to the antiques that made up her surroundings. Peeking behind life’s curtain of secrets as a youth while listening to the amazing stories behind collectibles and priceless trinkets, Banegas realized important connections in human nature and the past. As she pursues definition within her aesthetic voice, Banegas looks forward to becoming an active, imaginative part of the art community.
