Maxwell mustardo
Duration: September 2020-march 2021
Maxwell Mustardo has been conducting rigorous material research with plastics and glasses for the past few years & his resulting work has become more sculptural and less utilitarian. While in New Harmony, his goal is to push his work back towards functionality while maintaining robust material exploration.
Maxwell has been developing his own glazes using metal saturated glasses that precipitate crystal growth during a kiln’s cooling, as the metals can’t become chemically stable in the fully melted glass matrix. His material research through glaze testing will lead into the creation of forms tailored to suit the needs of these developed surfaces.
quick facts
How many years have you been working as a clay artist? I started working casually with clay early in high school. While attending art school I explored other media but continually returned to making ceramics. After finishing my undergraduate studies in 2017, I’ve been working more or less as a full-time ceramist.
What is your main clay body that you currently use? I enjoy working with both porcelains and heavily grogged clays. Switching between a high resolution and low resolution material allows a range of working methods & surfacing options that I can tailor to suit a specific project or idea
What is the primary method you use for building your work? I use simple techniques, mostly hand-building with coils or throwing on the potter’s wheel.
What is your favorite studio tool? Working directly with my hands is my primary method, with many indispensable little tools coming in to tidy up the messes they make.
Do you have any future clay wishes or dreams? I’m grateful to be currently living my dream of continued studio immersion. My clay wishes are often rather short-sighted technical notions that lead me onwards. Pursuing alchemical glazed surfaces, such as glasses that wrinkle, would be one example.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I approach making as a vital opportunity to examine perception and signification. My work engages with ceramics as a polyphonic medium: one that speaks in multiple voices simultaneously. By working within simple constraints, such as the format of the mug, vase, or torus, I explore orchestrating elements of surface, form, materiality, and function. Many projects revolve around broad, reverential notions of the vessel, the body, and language. Attempts are made to continually dissect processes, revisit forms, and reframe themes to agitate evolution and antagonize static thinking. Objects are focused upon as vital witnesses and participants, reflections and poems, animate and imagined.
BIOGRAPHY
BORN: pittstown, New Jersey, USA
Maxwell Mustardo was born in 1993 in rural New Jersey. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Bachelor of Science in Art History and Theory from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2017. During his time at Alfred, Max earned multiple awards including an ARGUS grant for materials research, a Levine Endowment grant to study material culture in Japan & South Korea, and was the SUNY visual arts finalist for the Thayer Fellowship in the Arts/Patricia Kerr Ross Award. In addition, Max studied industrial design at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, China. His current practice encompasses scholarly writing, curation, teaching, design, and sculpture. He has been a resident artist at the Takaezu Studio, the Mendocino Art Center, the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, and the Sonoma Community Center. Max is currently an artist in residence at the New Harmony Clay Project in southern Indiana.