Response to Visual Symposium #7

        Presented by Cary Esser and Paul Donnelly, this week's symposium was over ceramics and its impact within the artistic community. Made with one of the most common resources to be found, ceramics has a long history, including being tied in with the development of written language. The popularity of ceramics has long been associated with its ability to reflect the familiarity of life; it represents material comfort. Although ceramics have many facets, but most can be covered by aesthetic, social, historical, economic, cultural, and political views.
        Ceramics has gone beyond its simple identities of pots and kitchenware, into being put through many different uses. Although it creates a sense of unity through the commonality of dirt, ceramics has been used due to its durability and protectiveness. Ceramics have been used many times as sanitary objects (i.e. toilets, sinks), but also have more profound appearances (such as being carriers of narratives). Ceramics has become symbolic in art as reflecting the familiarity of life because it often illustrates material comfort. Often times used as decorations, they mediate our living environment by creating boundaries between society and the wild.
        Despite having so much breath in the meaning of the clay itself, ceramic also carries symbolism within its form as the vessel. Artistic revolutions have occurred through the design of certain styles and techniques of creating ceramics. Albeit the artistic revolutions, the vessel of ceramics will always create a connection from the creator to its viewer through handiwork, which allows for originality among pieces. The processes of creating ceramics will always draw a connection back to nature, which allows for branching within original techniques, yet draw off of a domestic comfort that plays off of the mediocrity of clay. However, due to the commonality of clay, ceramics has become a popular medium to link activism and social awareness with. The clay allows the layering of irony and social paradoxes or destroyed to illustrate their impermanence. But most importantly, once again due to the accessible nature of clay, ceramics has its original roots in consumerism and mass production.