Sierra Slentz
Marking Time: May 2020, 2020
Ceramics
Courtesy the artist

This work was on loan for the exhibition, Sierra Slentz: Marking Time, at the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, April 19 - July 24, 2021

Originally trained as a painter, Slentz has paid attention to the painterly potential of three-dimensional surface and form. She relishes the suspended fluidity of dried clay slip, and the contrast between protruding areas of mass that catch the light while other areas create shadow. Noticing that people under the COVID-19 shutdown became more resourceful, more conscious of waste, she decided not to throw away sculptures that broke during the creative process. Instead she drilled holes in the clay and stitched the pieces back together, adding the accidental breakage to her visual diary.

By making her reaction to the pandemic so clearly visible, Slentz invites us to reflect on the journeys we’ve gone through over the past year. Did our experiences look like hers? How were they different? “If clay has sustained her,” the viewer might ask themselves, “then what has sustained me? How have I measured time?”

Item description: Small, round ceramic sculptures arranged as though in an invisible calendar of five rows and seven columns; the first five slots of the first row are vacant. The surface of each piece varies in every possible form: some are smooth and reflective, others are cracked, mottled, indented, or dripped with glaze. Their colors range between milky earth tones, teal, neon pink and lime, or news clippings.