Ashley Kim

Ashley Kim – guest artist

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It's been over 20 years since Ashley Kim became hooked on clay.  Settled in San Diego, she now has the luxury of working at her home studio and tending to her garden, her two infatuations at this moment.

 

Ashley's  formal education in Ceramics includes a BFA from Utah State University and a MFA from Indiana University Bloomington.  While her formal training has helped in shaping herself as an artist, her commitment to the craft and love for the medium has grown over the years of working with clay.

 

Her inspiration comes from many sources.  It was a simple tool for her, a pattern marker.  Then came scraps of laces and zippers.  This is how her current work began.  It is composed of utilitarian pots and objects made for our intimate, domestic settings, namely our homes.  Domestic objects, such as vases, are new forms she is exploring. With her work, she explores different shapes and forms as different ways of thinking about and presenting food or flowers in the case of the vase.

 

Embellishing the surface is something that has become “fun” for her.  Textures are directly applied using the tools and materials which I have acquired recently.  Marks of stitches, patterns and zippers appear on her pots as if they are clothed.  Sometimes, there is a vague reference to the female body. Layering of colors, using stains, slips and glazes, enhance the richness and depth that she looks for, a challenge in the world of cone 6 oxidation.

 

Pottery saturates our world. Yet thoughtfully made functional pottery has the potential to enrich and elevate our daily domestic experience. She wants her work to play that role.

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San Diego, California