Following is the full Blair Clemo interview as featured in the Fall 2023 Studio Magazine and part of the Curious Minds interview series.
A. Blair Clemo is associate professor of Ceramics in Craft/Material Studies. Originally from Doylestown, Pennsylvania, Clemo spent many years out west studying ceramics and working at small production potteries in Idaho and Montana. He has been an artist in residence at the Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis, the Da Wang Culture Highland in Shenzhen, China, and the Zentrum für Keramik in Berlin. His utilitarian pottery, sculpture and installation work have been included in numerous national and international exhibitions. Clemo received his B.F.A. in ceramics from the University of Montana Missoula, and his M.F.A. in ceramics at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University.
In this interview, Clemo shares insights into his evolving practice and the lines of questioning that continue to challenge his work even as his reputation as a potter and sculptor reaches new heights. What does it mean to develop a practice and seek mastery?
He also shines an intimate light on the playful, experimental curiosity and openness that have made his courses some of the most sought-after in the School of the Arts. Clemo’s body of work and tireless self-reflection remind us that the nature of making is intimately bound up with our ways of living consciously in relation with ourselves and each other.
STUDIO: So you’ve been a part of the VCU arts community for years now, but you’ve also taught in other capacities. I’m talking about your time as a visiting professor at Shandong University in China. You’ve also taught numerous workshops at craft centers, Arrowmont School of Art and Craft, and Pocosin School of Fine Craft, for example, which is really exciting. Can you talk a little bit about the ways in which your studio practice and your teaching work complement each other?
CLEMO: Yeah. I think one of the biggest things that I try to do or have to do in my studio is to find a balance between skilled execution and doing things that I don’t know what the outcomes are going to be. I’ve made thousands of cups and I pretty much know how to do it at this point, right? So, when I sit down to throw a cup, I can do that and anticipate that what I’m going to get is what I’m going to get. I know what that looks like, but it’s a common and important part of my practice to throw a wrench in those gears and ask a lot of “what if” questions. To really invite the possibility of failure into the studio. It’s really important to keeping my work going. I think the longer I make and the more skill I gain, the more important it becomes for me to challenge that skill and really invite myself to fail. That’s something I really try to include in all levels of teaching. It’s something that I think is important to model.
I do a lot of demonstrations in class. I’m a demo-heavy professor because I think that a big part of building skill is watching how other people operate and how other people do things and sort of decoding that for yourself based on your own practice. I try to disenfranchise the idea that there’s a right way, especially that my way is it. My way is not the right way, It’s just a way. I think that I’ve learned so much through failed attempts. Most of my career has just been one big failure that’s led to a couple of pictures on the internet or something. [laughs]
But really, failure is so integral to what I do. I think sometimes in class it’s a little theatrical. I’ll do something that I know is not going to work and fail on purpose in front of the students so I can scramble. They all kind of go, “Wait, is this really happening? Like, you don’t know how to make this thing?” Sometimes I’ll genuinely try something new that I’ve never tried before. It’s just an idea I have during a demo or a lesson, and I’ll fail actively in front of the students and try to salvage that. I think that, either way, it’s really important that they see me try new things, see those things not work, and see how they end up transitioning into something that does work or transitioning into an outcome that’s unknown, but still fruitful.
One of the things about my practice is that I really try to challenge my work as a maker. I work in bodies of work, but if I want to move on to something else or have a new idea, I’m not averse to trying that.
I had a professor named David Regan in undergrad and during one of our last studio visits I kept saying, “Oh, well, my work does this and my work does that, and my work whatever.” He just sort of looked at me and said, “Who do you think you are to have your work? I’ve been making work for decades and I don’t know what my work is.” I really felt kind of caught out in that moment, trying to build an identity for myself. I hear that in my head every time a student starts to talk about my work, my work, my work.
I do try to pop that bubble a little bit and say, “Well, you know, your work is always wheel thrown, covered in white glaze and has a decorative surface. What happens when you hand-build a sculpture and glaze it blue? Is it still your work? Of course, it is.” I think broadening the way that we think about what we’re capable of in the studio or broadening the way that we identify with what we make is a really important part of my practice and definitely something I try to build into the classroom too.
STUDIO: I loved hearing you talk about the idea of failure, because I think it’s an idea that weaves through all of our classes and that we try to get students to embrace. How else can they really understand when something is working really well?
CLEMO: We also have to define what success is for ourselves. Especially in a world where people are really pushing the boundaries of craft—really thinking about what touch means and what things that we traditionally think of as flaws, how we can capitalize on those flaws and make new objects the world’s never seen before. If you’re entrenched in this idea of the right way of doing something, or “My work does this and doesn’t do that,” what you’re doing is excluding a world of possibilities by saying, I’m a potter—I’m not open to every single other way of making things in the entire world. That’s very limiting. I think it’s important that instead of saying, “I do this,” you are looking at all the things you’re not doing and say, “Well, why aren’t I interested in those things?” How are they not being built into the dialogue that I have between material and practice and the work and asking those “What if” questions? What if I did try this thing? How would I translate this new idea through the lens of work I’m already making? I think those are really important lessons.
STUDIO: We ask students to think about failure, but what are some of the other important questions that you feel like we need to ask young artists today? I don’t mean young in the sense of their time and experience in the world, but their time and experience with material or in their practice. What are some of the most important questions they should be asking themselves as emerging artists?
CLEMO: One of the things that I think about when working with early career artists is how different the world is going to be, how different the field that we work in is going to be when they get where I’m at. I made my first pots with real sincerity in 1998 in a college class and it was very clear to me that I was going to be selling the pots at craft fairs, like “art in the park” or whatever, for the rest of my life because that’s how I found art. There wasn’t Instagram, there wasn’t really any kind of internet presence for art at all. So, every gallery I ever went to sold work in person, every artist I ever met, you went to their studio, and you bought their work. I was totally convinced I was going to follow that model. That model doesn’t really exist anymore. Even reputable, prominent galleries sell a huge portion of work online.
My point is that my career as an artist today looks very different than I thought it was going to look back then. It wasn’t even possible to be the kind of artist I am now back then. It’s very, very possible—I’m going to say absolutely 100% likely—that artists graduating right now with a B.F.A. in 20 years are going to be making a living using a model that currently does not exist. So how do you prepare yourself for a model that doesn’t exist? How, in 1998, was I going to prepare myself for an online presence? I couldn’t. So, I think it’s really vital for students, or early career artists, to start asking themselves, “How do I really want to interface with this field? And what do I want my presence to look like?”
We all get to choose our level of involvement. Some people choose a hobbyist level of involvement. Some people choose a professional level of involvement. And those choices help us to decide how engaged we want to be and in what way. I would really ask young people to think about what they want their careers to look like, what they want their relationship to making look like, and how they think about artists now versus how they want to think of artists in the future. I think that’s a pretty vital question for them, because it’s one that we can’t prepare for, other than by knowing that change is inevitable and it’s going to happen. So, it’s all possibilities, right? It’s all possibilities.
Our students are literally going to make the future of the field, not in a quixotic way, but in a very real way—they are going to make real, meaningful innovations. They are going to follow new models and they are going to define what art is in 20, 30, 40 years. That’s big. So, what’s it going to be? That’s an important thing for us all to be thinking about, but especially young artists who have their whole career ahead of them and have so much innovation and so much to contribute to the field.
STUDIO: I think a lot about the rules or the rituals that I as an artist choose to either completely abandon or run toward and embrace. Those things change quite a bit, depending on the other realities that we’re dealing with in our lives, right? Can you talk a little bit about what rituals or routines play a role in your practice, or if they do at all?
CLEMO: I think in some way they’re mental exercises. Certainly I have a daily practice, but my art career, like that of so many, is split between a lot of different places. I teach, I do workshops, I make work that I consider serious artwork, and then I invest my time making other things like making dinner for my family, which doesn’t go into gallery but is an important and meaningful thing I do. So, in all of that stuff, I think that I kind of can’t help but really spend time in the studio asking questions that move the work forward. It’s not something I can help. There’s a lot of times I wish I could just make the same cups over and over and over again because they’re selling and people like them, but I get in these—I think it’s a ritual or a routine—where I ask, what’s next? Where does this object lead? Or where does this thinking lead?
Pushing that practice forward, it’s become something I cherish. But I also wish I could put it all down sometimes because if I’m really cooking on an idea, new projects or new ideas just come in and they have to find their way. I have a hard time editing them out, because they’re just going to bully their way in. I guess I have to put away the potter’s wheel and bust out the welder. I guess that’s just what it means today.
I think that’s something that’s become a part of my routine or my practice—to not have a standardized practice and to try to keep my finger on the pulse and say, what do I want to make? And if I go in the studio one day and my intent is to make cups, but I really don’t feel like it, asking why I don’t feel like it is a part of the process—is it that the cups are stale and stagnant, and I need something that gives me new information? Or is there some external stressor? And right now, cups aren’t the thing because I gotta go deal with that thing.
I think asking myself sincere questions about my motivations in the studio has become a real routine for me. Sometimes it leads to a point where I know I’m not going to do any work right now, you know? So, it bites me sometimes, but it’s imperative. I can’t help it, it’s a part of my routine now. So it doesn’t really enter into the space of rituals and routines, but it’s something that’s ever present in my studio for sure—questioning my motivations and why I’m compelled to do one thing over another, then trying to follow that as much as I can to get information from it. Because all that questioning leads to is information about myself and the things I’m making and about the field that I’m participating in.
STUDIO: I want to return to something that you said earlier, probably dating back to your first year in college, where you really gained an affinity for working in a functional format and thinking, “This is what I want to do. I’m going to be a potter.” I think it’s fair to say that you’ve had an established reputation as a potter for quite some time. But your most recent body of work moves into the realm of sculpture and installation, so I was hoping you could talk a little bit about the conversation that exists between functionality in ceramics and the conversation that exists in your sculpture and installation work. One certainly informs the other, I think, but can you talk about that conversation?
CLEMO: Yeah, I think it really is less of a choice and more thinking, “If I’m going to keep making, I have to follow this impulse that I have and try to define what it is.” First of all, I don’t think I’m a very good potter, and I don’t mean that in terms of skill—I’m a skilled enough potter. Rather, I mean in terms of how I think a lot of studio potters are concerned with the way an object works and who’s going to be using it. The comfort or the ease of use or the versatility of an object and the user experience. I think a lot of potters are really focused on those things, and I am too, but I also make pots that aren’t very friendly a lot of the time. I make things that don’t look like your typical cup or bowl or plate. I’ll make objects like a soup tureen, or things that maybe aren’t invited to our cultural table very often.
I remember I was at a residency with one of my good friends and I’d given him a cup. He said, “You know, I really like your work, but I don’t want to think about your M.F.A. thesis show every time I drink my coffee in the morning.” I thought that was such great feedback. It’s one of the best critiques I ever had. I don’t know if I said it at the moment, but I thought, “I’m going to die on this hill where I do want you to think of my M.F.A. thesis when you’re drinking your coffee.” That’s why I’m making, because I think that all forms of art are some kind of communication, visual or otherwise.
So, what am I communicating? Am I trying to communicate that this is a nice cup, or do I have something more about the history of cups or our cultural identity around cups, or the way that we think about industry, or the way that I think about Starbucks or whatever? Is there something else I have to say? And the answer to that is yes.
Even though I’m a potter—I think about pots and I make pots—I don’t make them in that sort of traditional way. I really think about them as art objects that have rules. That’s one thing I really love about pots. If I’m going to make a teapot it has to have certain components; it’s gotta have a body, probably a handle if you’re not going to burn your hand, a spout, a lid, and a knob to access that interior. So, if you start to break down those utilitarian components, at some point you no longer have a teapot. You have a sculpture that looks sort of like a teapot. I love living within those rules. I love the boundaries that pots give me, because I think it activates the work differently than sculpture does.
For example, I used to make some pretty ornate, grand, ridiculous soup tureens. I never really thought about who’s going to be using these soup tureens or thinking about them as an object of daily use. But it was very, very important to me that that lid fit perfectly and that the interior was smooth enough for use, that it was glazed with a food safe glaze. That it did all the utilitarian things. Not because I thought somebody was going to be using this every day and it might be a pain in the butt for them to clean, but because without those utilitarian components it’s just sculpture.
I think pots are armed with a certain kind of power to ask questions. If the soup tureen works, you have to ask the question, “who the heck would ever use this thing? And what would they serve in this thing? Who’s invited to that table? Who’s excluded from that table? What is the event where somebody’s using this soup tureen?” Those are all questions that pots ask that sculpture does not ask.
I love making pots because they allow me to exercise these different kinds of questions that only pots can ask. But they can also be limiting. The sculpture I’ve been making recently usually uses clay as a supporting factor. Clay is one of the skillsets I have. It’s one of the materials I have access to, but it’s not the only one, and it’s not perfect for everything. When I make sculpture, I’m really thinking about what the work can do that pots can’t do, how can clay have a different conversation? How can other materials enter the same kind of conversation?
I’m still thinking a lot of the same things, though. I’m thinking about interior space, I’m thinking about decoration and surface ornamentation. I’m thinking about wall decoration. I’m thinking about structure and form and maybe architecture. It’s all kind of in the same camp for me. Sculpture lives in a gallery, the pots live in a kitchen. They’ve each got their place and they ask different questions in those places. I don’t wanna live in a world where I don’t have both of those things happening, but it’s hard to hold them both up at the same time.
I think it’s all part of asking the questions I have about the world and so I’ve got to end up doing both. And I’ve always done that in some way. My B.F.A. thesis show was sculptural, figurative sculpture, of all things. I made sculpture for a year in grad school, and I’ve made sculpture in all my 13 years since grad school. I think sometimes a body of work has a little bit more potency and strength, and so that’s what people see, or that’s what I end up showing more. But it’s been a consistent part of my practice.
STUDIO: You were talking about who’s invited to the table, about who is using these utilitarian objects. You teach a tableware class and it’s incredibly popular. Students are really disappointed when they can’t get into that class. I’m curious if you think students are asking themselves those same questions in terms of the rules that they are establishing around utilitarian objects. Are they thinking about the work in sculptural or performative ways?
CLEMO: Sure. I hope so. I think we do some projects in that class to help them think about those more performative aspects. For example, one project I’ve done in years past is to have them craft a dining experience rather than crafting dinnerware or tableware. When you don’t think about the tableware, but instead about how the tableware gets used or what context it works in, it allows you to build the context first and then say what tableware is appropriate for that context. So, let’s say we’re going to have a meal, but there’s not going to be a table between us. Well, now we have to design a table and it’s going to sit on our laps or maybe hang from the ceiling. Or maybe it’s contained in some weird backpack. We have to come up with novel solutions because we’re not taking for granted what that dining space looks like. So, I think, again, by shifting the place where your focus is, you get to ask new questions about the fundamental thing. We’re still just making dishes.
I think that they are asking questions, but the big thing is, how do we know what the questions are? We ask a lot of questions and find out which ones we get stuck on. A couple things I’ve heard or thought of 20 years ago have never left my brain, because they’ve been pivotal questions that have pushed my work forward. I want to challenge what a pot can be. I hope I have a student in class that really wants to focus on what a pot is from a traditional lens, and then explore that with virtuosity through innovation.
I want to live in that world too, right? I think it’s important that we’re also questioning what our expectations are. I mean, you talked about rules and developing those rules. Rules are great because they give us a place to start and something to push against, but it’s important that we take a moment to identify what a rule is and ask if it still has a place.
I like to teach workshops without a real plan. I have a colleague that often says to me, “if you can’t wing it at this point, you have no business teaching it.” I think I love winging it, but one of the things that I think about is that I’ve started to identify decision points and I’ve been using that term. So even when I’m demonstrating throwing, you know, I’ll throw that cylinder and I can take the cylinder for granted. The cylinder has rules, I’m adhering to the rules, and I get the cylinder. Now I reach a decision point. Do I cut this thing in half? Do I smush it with my hand? Do I make that rim fancy? There’s a point of decision.
I think about identifying how many decision points we reach in the course of making even something as simple as a cup. There are dozens that I can identify, and if I’m conscious of my decisions at every single point then I’m destined to be challenging myself. I don’t do that with every pot I make, but it’s important that I do it often enough that I’m consciously aware that I have a decision to make right now. I can make the same decision I’ve made a thousand times. Or I can stick my thumb in the side of it. Right?
I think that awareness of the agency we have to make endless decisions in what we make is the thing I hope students are asking themselves. What are their decision points? What are those decision points based on? What are the parameters through which they’re able to push against those decisions? That’s for every artist to define for themselves.
Interview conducted by Cindy Myron, chair and assistant professor, Department of Craft/Material Studies