The umbrella you always keep by your door, the fake potted plant on your kitchen counter and your butter dish all may not drive inspiration for everyone, but ceramics graduate student Jodie Masterman has based her entire thesis show on the deep significance these items have in your life.
“I’m making a series of still lives using objects as placeholders for certain people and certain memories,” Masterman said. “In the past, I’ve done a lot of functional work, [this collection] demonstrates how memories change over time and how that changes your perception of the objects you remember using.”
Masterman’s exhibition — showing alongside her friend and fellow graduate painter Eli Casiano — will be open April 17-21, with a special reception on April 21 from 6-8 p.m. The exhibition will showcase the impact family has had on Masterman and Casiano’s lives and their art, in two very different styles.
Masterman’s inspirations don’t end with just memories, however. The concept of memory baking itself into an object’s essence may seem an unconscious choice on one end, but Masterman sees a strong connection between these mental triggers and the owner’s conscious choice to have these objects in their lives.
“[It also demonstrates] how the way in which the objects people choose to surround themselves with says so much about who they are, but also how they display and arrange their objects and curate their interior landscape,” Masterman said. “It says so much not only about who they are as a person, but also how they function within that space and how they interact with others there.”
Though she has her own studio section, Masterman said she is constantly surrounded by the sounds of her fellow ceramics students. She said while she had always wanted to do something with art as well as teaching, it was the community surrounding ceramics that took her down her current path.
“It’s [a combination of] the diversity, the people that are involved in ceramics and the energy in the ceramics building,” Masterman said. “And the collaborative approach to this art as opposed to others — just getting to use my hands to build something.”
Masterman – though she has lived in America for many years – said she has found the most inspiration for her work in the memories of her childhood in Wales. She said her time with her family in the U.K. taught her to pay attention to the little things and everyday household items.
“My grandparents still live in Wales, and I spent a lot of time in my childhood at their house,” Masterman said. “When I think of their house, I always think about the kitchen, because my Nan would always be cooking in there. [Little things like] how the light would enter the room and going down to the kitchen in the morning for this beautiful breakfast with all the toast in the toast rack and a butter dish for the butter, and the big bowl full of fruit…”
Masterman said the butter dish, in particular, was one of the symbolic pieces that made it into her collection. The objects range widely in variety, but they all hold a connecting tie: memories.
“I made an umbrella to symbolize my grandma because for me, she is much a Mary Poppins figure,” Masterman said. “[This project was a way] for me to figure out my relationships with different family members through objects.”
Connections of family and community have proved to be a strong driving force behind Masterman’s work, as well as one of the reasons she began to love ceramics. She said she got her true start to sculpting while studying drawing at the Art Institute in Chicago.
“I decided over the summer to take a ceramics throwing class, and it was really challenging for me,” Masterman said. “Going through the new challenges of trying to center and make all of the walls even height and working with all these people at the same time. I loved getting to find and create new surfaces for my drawings.”
Masterman lets all the emotion behind her work show as prominently as she can, right down to the most intimate artistic details.
“I use porcelain, and I pinch all of my work,” she said. “It feels important to put my fingerprints on this work. It makes me feel like I’m in control of these memories. All of the importance behind these memories, these people and these objects could’ve been so different from any other perspective.”
Masterman said her personal brand of style also contains, in some capacity, the color yellow, since it has such a lightness behind it.
“People will tell me that my work is kind of fun and silly, which is great,” Masterman said. “I love making people happy and I love the idea of my work making someone happy, but sometimes the memories aren’t as happy as some of the objects. It makes the work approachable in a way that it might not be if I’d used other colors.”
Masterman said her curiosity with the bonds that hold people and their memories together is truly what brings her works to life.
“I don’t want to live in a sterile environment that doesn’t show life-occupancy,” Masterman said. “When you enter a home you can see a clear passage to the heart of the home.”