Jonathan Mess
Jonathan Mess is a contemporary ceramic artist and educator who allows his art to be given by instinct and experimentation. He creates energetic, ambitious, and environmentally focused artwork using primarily reclaimed and sustainable materials.
An Ohio native, Mess holds a BFA from the University of Montana, Missoula and an MFA in Ceramics from the State University of New York at New Paltz. He has been teaching visual arts with a focus on ceramics for two decades. Mess has received numerous grants and awards. His work is in private collections and has been exhibited internationally, including London, China, Los Angeles, New York, and throughout New England. Mess resides, works, and teaches in midcoast Maine.
Artist Statement
My artwork is characterized by experimental abstraction using reclaimed ceramic materials and referencing natural land forms, constantly pushing my materials and processes into new territory. Like many artists, I’m endlessly inspired by the incredible natural environment around me, in my case, on the rugged coast of Maine. Clay is the essential material in my process because it literally allows me to use the earth’s crust as my medium. But, I am aware of the problems with mining and the volume of wasted material in studios everywhere, so I try not to take many new materials from the earth. I have developed a low-waste making system by collecting discarded ceramic materials and recycling them into new forms.
Conventional wisdom says never to make solid clay objects, but I have learned how to break that rule. I collect cast aside ceramic materials from busy clay studios—slop clay, glazes, discarded and broken work, buckets marked only with question marks. I reconstitute and test the collected materials to determine temperature ranges and organize my color palette. I collect used cardboard boxes and manipulate them into interesting, dynamic shapes. Then, I slowly pour layers of colored casting slip and the various reclaimed ceramic materials into my cardboard box molds, creating a wasteland form of refuse resembling geologic strata. I walk away and let nature shift, dry, and slump the work, paying careful attention to moisture levels and drying time toachieve intentional natural compositions. Embracing risk and the unknown, I fire the works to various temperatures, encouraging lower temperature materials to ooze and slump of their own accord. If I feel works are not yet finished, I slice them with industrial stonecutting saws after firing to reveal fascinating cross sections and material interaction. These objects deliver a monumental impact on a restrained scale, bridging painting and sculpture in three-dimensional abstract expressionism.
It is my goal to not only push my work with new forms and materials, but also to push the overall ceramic conversation regarding sustainability and our relationship to the earth. I am committed to developing an environmentally responsible practice, creating compelling art objects that elicit excitement and environmental dialogue. Material experimentation and innovation, intuition and risk-taking, process and its evidence are all essential concepts in my work. Recognizing happy accidents and embracing repair are also integral to my practice. Can I reinvent, manipulate, reimagine ceramic waste, saving even my own scraps and failures from the dumpster? Can I find value in my failures and invent new life for them?
