Claudia Poser
Ceramic Sculpture, Prints and Mixed Media
Artist Statement
I love to play with shape, color, and pattern, but most of all, I love to play with clay. What motivates me are those moments of fusion with the material when time and judgment drop away and there is only touch and the beguiling color of wet terra cotta. As an artist educated in science, the technical aspects of glazing and firing attract me as well. That is why I also enjoy monotype - like clay, it is a medium where the interface between art and technology leads to elements of surprise.
The tension between order and emotion, the rational and the organic intrigues me. I find beauty in both natural and manufactured detail. My pods grow out of my fascination with nature's instinctive drive towards growth and change. In the "spirit windows" classic gothic arches symbolize yearning for the holy in our often mechanical and always complicated lives.
Bio
My art training has been eclectic. I was born in Germany to a mother who was passionate about art history and travel, so I became intimate with art and museums at an early age. I grew up steeped in modernism and Scandinavian design. As a teen and in my twenties, I haunted contemporary art museums, absorbing art movements by osmosis. When I decided to change careers in 1989, after ten years as a polymer scientist, I first turned to writing and for relaxation began to study ceramics at Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis, where I became a studio artist in 1995. I participated in the WARM Mentor Program from 2006-2008.
