nightbirdceramics

Nightbird builds big dumb pots. This term is used with affection and love.

When they began to experiment with coil pots, nightbird had no idea that this method would become a critical part of their practice. They began their experimentation from arguably the opposite perspective: They just did not understand why someone would choose to coil. It seemed to be an overly slow, tedious process that yielded less-perfect results than wheel throwing. Nightbird wanted to understand. And they got what they wanted.

Coil is unusual, almost unique in its capacity to create fluctuating, iterative, strange shapes. Coil offers the possibilities of extreme asymmetry: expansion and contraction, fractal-type propagation, and hyperbolic surfaces. Nightbird calls vessels with such variances “anti-functional.” This is not to suggest that the pieces are nonfunctional, but rather that the purpose of these vessels is not their ability to be functional. That’s not the most important thing about them.

“Functional” is a term with an agenda. It requires a user (subject) and a used (object). The object serves, and the subject sets the terms for qualification. A vessel is functional when it is used frequently, serves a purpose the subject benefits from, and, sometimes (but not always), disappears into the mechanisms of the subject’s greater life.

In order to examine how functionality plays out across methods, let’s look closer at how using a potter’s wheel shapes vessel creation. When wheel throwing, an artist is able to achieve near-perfect symmetry. A purpose of this symmetry (in addition to showing off the artist’s skills) is containment, or the vessel’s ability to hold. Symmetric forms, and in particular those that are solely convex, approach maximum volume capacity. Many forms thrown on the wheel are considered “functional” because of this feature. From this perspective, perhaps it doesn’t make sense to coil when you can just as easily throw it on the wheel. Coil is an unnecessary method when working in a small to medium size with symmetry as the goal. It’s too slow.

Across methods, a vessel may remain something that holds. However, in anti-functional pottery, the purpose changes. Symmetry becomes less important, even at times a needless limitation. Coil pots can be built taller and stranger than anything one can throw on a wheel. And we can ask questions from a different perspective:

If a vessel is something that holds, is it okay for a vessel to hold without approaching maximum capacity? What does a vessel hold, in itself? What makes a vessel inherently worthy?

Clay is something precious. When creating, the artist and the clay are in a conversation of equals. And so, vessels hold many things: the care of the artist for their clay; the generosity of the clay for their artist; the memories and time of its creation. The irony is that with creation, a vessel’s ability to hold gains mutuality. When nightbird works on a vessel, they feel a deep emotional connection with the vessel as something that not only holds, but is held. That deserves to be held, taken care of. When pots grow to the size of a small child or a rib cage, the artist feels an instinct to cradle and embrace.