Interview with Crafthaus Member Amber Aguirre

Amber Aguirre is a ceramic artist working in Hawaii. She creates thought-provoking work, and has developed an original method of high fire "Faux-ku", which looks like Raku, but is much more durable. I interviewed her recently. Below are her thoughtful and gracious answers!

Please comment on the confrontation of the amount of control we have over our destiny, as it relates to your work. Specifically, what role does humor play in this pursuit?

I have always had questions about how much control we have over our own destiny. My mom is a Holocaust survivor and when I was a child I always asked her why the Jews went along with all the restrictions that eventually lead to their slaughter. Her response to me was always “we had no choice”. The concept of being “without choice” really bothered me and I didn’t understand her response since she eventually took the chance and made the choice to escape. After years of contemplating this (and lots of therapy) I have come to the conclusion that we make choices all the time that can change our destiny. This is what my sculpture “Fork in the Road” is about, and actually many of my sculptures are about. The character of “Pony Girl” for example represents the “victim”, yet she is making a choice to be that victim.

I try to use humor to get my messages across as I feel that it creates a draw that is more conducive to bringing people to think than being serious. My daughter put it in a way that I like. She said that I give my audience a “one-two punch” I draw them in with humor, and then I hit them with the message. I laugh at everything because we as humans are such darn flawed things! I think it is hilarious how we set ourselves up for failures and all I can do is laugh at it. Since I believe in free choice I have to acknowledge that it is our own flawed choices that get us into trouble and that just seems so comically absurd to me. If people take themselves too seriously then I think they end up being unhappy. Laughing at my mistakes makes for constant fun in life because I make so many of them.

For example I have been working on a 6 foot tall sculpture of my “Bunny Girl” character. I have never done anything this big before and I have had 3 complete failures at it (so far). When I look at why these failed, every time it is because of some flaw in my character.

The first time it crashed to the ground because my dogs knocked it over. Well, duh! I have 4 dogs…I should have been able to see that coming. The second time it warped in the kiln. This was because I was using the wrong kind of clay. I KNEW it was the wrong kind and in fact, I had ordered a good sculpture mix but was too impatient to wait for it to get to Hawaii. I figured, “what the heck” I’ll give it a try anyway. The results were totally predictable. The third time I was lazy about making the wood supports strong enough and of course they failed.

All of these were due to my own risk taking and corner cutting. It’s too funny that I keep setting myself up. I am now on the fourth incarnation and I am going a lot slower and trying to be more patient. It’s a great lesson in my faults and trying to overcome them.

Does the process of making heal you, and if so, how? And, more generally, how does the making process affect you?

I have never been particularly good at confrontation and after years of therapy I realized that I have been battling a “victim syndrome” that was a result of being the child of a survivor. I have had to fight this throughout my life and using sculpture as my current therapy has helped a great deal in being able to understand and visualize my issues. It also helps me laugh at my problems instead of getting hung up on them. The character of “Bunny Girl” is a direct result of this victim syndrome. Bunny Girl represents the cute, fluffy bunny that you trust and think is harmless, yet it can turn and stab you in the back. Too many times I have set myself up to be stabbed in the back with my trusting nature. When it happens, I can’t express myself to them and get satisfaction, but I express it in clay and then move on.

Please elaborate on how social commentary is sacred to you.

I feel that if we do not comment on what we feel are the injustices of the world, they will continue. If I can bring light to something that someone may not have thought of before and perhaps even change someone’s mind about something, then my work is worth doing. By using humor and unconventional topics I am hoping that people will take notice and perhaps make a difference in the world. Since I feel that art is my only “gift” I must use it in some way that can make a difference.

Please comment on the Rabbit project.

I am doing 365 rabbit heads, one head for each day of the year of the rabbit: 2011. This project is to work on my discipline and give me some structure. It also keeps my brain active thinking of new ideas. Last year I traveled so much to shows, conferences, etc. that I felt that I wasn’t spending enough time in the studio. This is going to force me to think about ideas and work every day. At the end I will have a show of all 365 heads and hopefully feel a great sense of accomplishment (and probably relief)! I conceived this show while on a 2 week residency at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts. Since it is in Maine, and far from Hawaii, I didn’t want to work on something shipping intensive so I made 7 small head sculptures for the wall. One of the things I liked very much about it was that everyone who came into the studio laughed when they saw them. I love making people giggle and this idea seemed like a fun thing to do. They also all sold very fast at the Ceramics Annual of America show at Fort Mason and then I was asked to make more for SOFA Chicago. Also, they are fun to do.

Can you explain a bit about the Fauxku process you developed?

When I started being rep’d by John Natsoulas Gallery on the mainland (CA) I had issues shipping my work because I was using “Naked Raku” as the surface treatment on all of my sculptures. I love this look because it visually represents how “broken” and “flawed” my characters are. Unfortunately shipping became a real problem as the raku process left the clay unvitrified and no matter how carefully I would pack it I inevitably had breakage occur. When John took my work to NCECA a few years ago he confronted with this problem. I was already getting noticed for my unique look so I couldn’t just change it. Necessity is the mother of invention and I needed to figure out a way to achieve the look of Naked Raku with a high fire process. I went home to my studio to work this out and the process I came up with I call Naked Fauxku because it looks much like naked raku, but is a “fake” way of doing it that doesn’t even involve raku. It is high fire and can be done in an electric kiln eliminating the problems I was having with breakage and also allowing me to add glaze at the same time as firing which was problematic with Naked Raku. There will be an article about how to do it coming up in PMI magazine sometime this year in conjunction with a book about alternative firing techniques being edited by Eduardo Lazo. I will be contributing a chapter on how to do the Naked Fauxku process. It will be published sometime at the end of this year by the American Ceramics Society.

How do you approach design and technical challenges?

I get input from those who have gone before me. No sense in reinventing the wheel. I go to Esther Shimazu who is my mentor for a lot of advice and I have also gotten much help with large work from Lisa Reinertson. My problem is the advice is always good, but I don’t always take it because I am stubborn. I usually end up figuring things out for myself the hard way. Somehow I learn better by making massive mistakes…go figure… When I do take people’s advice I usually have it easier.

7. How do you approach scale when creating your work? Ever work small? large? why?

I like to challenge myself. I am currently working on the rabbit heads that are small…about 3-5 inches each, while at the same time I am working on the 6 foot tall giant Bunny Girl. It makes me feel a bit schizophrenic but then I don’t do anything easy. It’s just no fun. It’s a challenge to do something small and something really big every single day.

I also like to provide galleries with work of all sizes. Small work like the heads have been selling really well during the recession and I also like the idea that someone who loves art but is not rich can still afford to buy something without breaking the bank. On the other hand, I think it is important to have medium and large size work for collectors and people who can afford to collect big art. Galleries are happy when they have things that sell. I am just happy to be constantly creating.