Amidst the rhythmic dances of light and shadow, Michael Wisner’s ceramics emerge with captivating intricate designs.
His artistic journey, which began with a love of indigenous pottery and geometric patterns, led Wisner to discover nature’s random and imperfect beauty, from paints to clay. Whisperings of positive and negative space will have you in awe over Wisner’s painstakingly intricate designs. However, Wisner had a revelation unfold in his creative journey — the allure of beauty and randomness woven into nature’s fabric.
The revelation struck him while examining patterns in nature. He worked with pinecones, initially dissecting and measuring them meticulously. Dissatisfied with the mechanical outcome, which he called “contrived, mechanical and sterile,” he embraced intuition over measurement, finding beauty in imperfection.
“I had seen this through the Pueblo Indian work — perfection is not part of their culture. They collaborate more with nature and aren’t bothered by the crooked line, meandering symmetry, or geometry. There’s something beautiful about that,” Wisner shared.
After graduating from college, Wisner worked as a researcher at the National Institutes of Health and later at a pharmaceutical company. Coming home after work, he would paint or draw. His interest in ceramics bloomed when he and his mother took a Southwestern vacation. He saw indigenous pottery and fell in love. “It looked like the doodling I was always doing as a kid.”
The pharmaceuticals job lasted about six months when, in his late 20s, he thought, “I should just do what I want to do and not lead a life of an obligatory job.”
Wisner began as a painter, drawn to M.C. Escher’s intricate geometric patternings. His paintings spoke to an indigenous genre of art. He said, “I don’t want to compete with that because I respect it and, at the same time, I wanted to keep the roots of it because it’s beautiful work.”
Nature, with its rhythms and patterns, became Wisner’s muse. He started by carving dried clay, and “while it worked a bit, the result was not very crafted.” Then, he shifted to experimenting with pressing patterns into hard but still damp clay and found a technique amenable to making sharper impressions.
The coupling of art and nature lay at the heart of Wisner’s creations. He draws inspiration from the intricacy woven into coral, tree bark, pinecones and artichokes. He said, “Anything with great rhythm and pattern is a great source of creative fuel for me.”
He takes the process a step further, challenging himself to reinterpret these motifs and mutating them in countless ways, thus birthing unique patterns that encapsulate the essence of nature’s diversity.
Residing in Woody Creek, Wisner sources clay locally by scouring the area’s riverbanks for “the stuff that sticks to your feet.”
After subjecting clay samples to kiln tests, he examines how it holds together, pulls apart or cracks to determine its potential. If the sample proves worthy, he returns to collect what is known in the clay-making world as a “road cut.”
Filtering and extracting the clay-rich deposits ends with placing the mass on a plaster basin to remove water until it becomes malleable. “This is how the indigenous people in Mexico make clay, where everything comes from the hillsides around where they live — so it’s a beautiful process,” Wisner shared.
Through experimenting with different pottery-making methods, Wisner said he stopped carving and started pressing with metal tools, some that resemble a small nail file. Each makes a distinct mark on the receptive clay surface.
Wisner’s artistic evolution included studying with celebrated Mexican potter Juan Quezada Celado in the Chihuahuan village of Mata Ortíz, where pottery created by the Paquimé people was found in prehistoric archaeological sites. He worked under Celado’s tutelage and then as a resident artist at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center, where he was exposed to contemporary practices from mentors and friends, ceramic artists Paul Soldner and Doug Casebeer.
In an ever-evolving dance between tradition and innovation, Wisner would develop his artistic vision. Of his artistic journey, Wisner said, “Casebeer took me under his wing and always encouraged me to keep experimenting.” And experiment he has, with beautifully imperfect outcomes.
Wisner’s pottery can be viewed at the Ann Korologos Gallery in Basalt or on his website at www.michaelwisnerpottery.org