Left to right: Intuition, 38" x 23" x 16", ceramic, 2005; Devoured series, 24" x 14" x 13", greenware, in progress; Worlds Apart, 36"x 18"x 17", ceramic bronze, 2005
Harmless Little Bunnies
Bunnies are symbols of passivity. But now that I have them, I know how aggressive they are. They eat their babies if they're not perfectly happy, and they kill each other. I have a little bunny in the house, and from across the lawn it went racing at the big bunny and attacked the big bunny. The big bunny was either playing dead or fainted. So rabbits have this very mysterious interior social life and hierarchy that I'm very attracted to right now. I mean dogs are so right there—what you see is what you get. There's not the same mystery.
 Reincarnation, 16"x 8"x 4", greenware, in progress |
I don't work for a show, I work for myself, really. And the times when I'm not having shows, I feel like I get further with where I want to be with my work. I am insane enough to keep working without any reason. For instance, for a while galleries would come in here and say, "Everything but the giant dead lady" [a larger-than-life sculpture of a tree growing out of the womb of a prone figure]. I'm not famous, I'm not big, so for shows I have to do what I think will sell, because otherwise I'm not going to be asked. Eventually, I'll hopefully be in a position where I can say, "This is what I have, you either show the giant dead lady or..." And it actually worked recently with this gallery in New York. I was playing a little bit hard to get with them. They wanted to do a show of dogs. [Ruttenberg has a series of dog sculptures.] I said, "I'm not doing dogs right now. Let me finish this body of work, then we'll talk." And it got them going. It was like dating. I learned something, you got to play hard to get. And then he called. I wasn't even here to talk to him. He called with a date and a show.
 Wolfrat, 16"x 12"x 5", greenware, in progress |
When I started doing ceramics, my paintings were selling for more because as soon as I started doing clay, it's a craft. I'm in the craft category. Right now I could go to a [craft] fair and find a gallery. Not a fine art fair. It's beginning. But anyway, I think that [ceramicist] Betty Woodman having a show at the Met is really going to change things. It's funny because I find her work conservative. But just the fact that it's at the Met changes it. It's so funny how people have these visions of things, you know. Just the fact that her work is at the Met makes it fine art because she's contemporary.
I've been calling myself a ceramicist, but maybe that's wrong. Maybe I should call myself a sculptor, because I am coming to ceramics with a fine art mentality.
 Goatman, 12" x 6"x 4", ceramic, 2006 |
As I'm working on it, it's like, "This is so great, I'm so creative. This is a masterpiece." And as soon as I finish it, I have to get it out, I hate it. It takes me about five years to like something afterwards. The process is really what I enjoy. I don't then put something in my living room and think, "Oh genius!"
A week ago, I started working on this big piece, I was so excited about it, it really seemed to be my future. And then it came out of the kiln and I hated it. I thought, I have to go back to zero, this is awful. So that's all part of the process. And then I get really depressed and then the process begins again. Finishing things is so hard, but beginning things is really fun. I just ordered two tons of clay, so I must be feeling optimistic.