Matt Long has been a ceramic artist for 22 years. He received his Bachelor degree of fine art from The Kansas City Art Institute in 1995, before acquiring his Masters from Ohio University in 1997. His pottery tends to be cone 10 soda-fired porcelain. Aside from being a well-known ceramic artist, Matt Long is also an assistant professor at the University of Mississippi and is currently running this university's Ceramics Department.
Although I had heard about Matt Long and his work before this past summer when I was fortunate enough to take a kiln building class from him, my interest in his art was sparked after meeting him and observing his passion for functional pottery. Long’s zeal for pottery can be observed in his artist statement when he says, “hand made pottery is a complete human expression, not an interpretation of usable objects that only address a standard.” This statement is expressed in the care and thought that Long includes in the creation of his pottery. Long typically decorates his ceramic art with slips and washes that are then covered by a variety of different soda-fired glazes. Personally, I enjoy the diversity of functional-ware that Matt Long creates, which can be seen in the gallery of his personal website http://www.fullvictory.com/gallery.html.
I was immediately drawn to Matt Long's white cups! After this final assignment, I am drawn to anything with white glaze. I would have loved to use this glaze on my cups and pitcher! It is both rustic and contemporary. The idea of "hand-made" pottery inspired me to think about hand-building more components of a thrown piece so that I can put my human impression into the clay. I would love to know what the gray glaze on the rims of the cups are.
ReplyDeleteI feel like this is a perfect example of how a glaze can transform a piece. The cups by themselves have a nice form, but in combination with the fading white glaze it immediately makes me think of a violent swirling storm.
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