I am interested in ceramics as a means, not an end. Ceramics as a means of social, intellectual and creative emancipation. Ceramics as a means of influencing our collective taste toward something more equitable, more sustainable, more collective, more compassionate, more considerate, more holistic, more open to the full spectrums of life and love. Ceramics as a means of communing with earth, with each other, with ourselves - with change. Ceramics as a record, a mirror and a time machine. Ceramics as a medium of metaphors. Ceramics as a radical prompt.
The objects I create are catalysts for and byproducts of my broader and more communally and pedagogically oriented activity as an artist and educator. I try to approach making in a way which doesn’t equate skill with value, and to instead employ whatever kind of touch, technique or rendering feels right. Ideas precede a piece or reveal themselves in time. Things become finished when they feel in some way to be more than just what they are - that sense emerging through some combination of reference, imagery, process, composition, and material phenomenon.
The accessibility and economics of pottery, the utopian notions of studio craft, the representational and narrative qualities of kitsch, the spectacular and collective efforts of firing ceramics with wood, the shared spaces of the studio and classroom, and the complexities of times and places in which I find myself, all inform and provide frameworks for my practice.
I have been deeply influenced by artists whose practices have integrated their art with the places, histories and communities where they live and work - artists like Theaster Gates, and here in Detroit, Tyree Guyton, Scott Hocking, John Glick, Powerhouse Productions and Popps Packing to name a few. Coming of age as an art student in Detroit in the late 00’s and amid the rise of social practice art pushed me to imagine the potential of my work beyond individual objects, and to consider how critically and creatively rethinking the methods and spaces of ceramic production, distribution and use could extend the reach and relevance of my practice.
Ceramics School, the community ceramics studio and artist residency I co-founded and co-direct with my wife and fellow artist, Virginia Torrence, has become the core of my practice around which my activities orbit, and from which my objects precipitate. I don’t teach ceramics because I think we need more ceramicists - ceramics is a dynamic prompt, revealing the transformational nature of our reality and our capacity to shape and influence the world around us. The safe and explorational space of the classroom fosters and empowers critical communities that continually seed and reaffirm my work as an artist and educator.
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Henry James Haver Crissman earned a BFA in Craft from the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, MI in 2012, and a MFA in Ceramics at Alfred University in Alfred, NY in 2015. He and Virginia Torrence co-founded and co-direct Ceramics School LLC, a ceramic-centric community art school and artist residency in Hamtramck, MI. He lives and makes art in Hamtramck, MI, and is currently an adjunct professor in the Studio Arts and Crafts Department at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, MI.