Nathan Prouty: Ceramicist/Stand-up comedian who doesn't want the attention

Sammiches: Kyle & His Dagwood, Black & White Giclée Print with color acetate overlay, Commission for Star Gods Press

I am overwhelmed.

The incessant input of stimulation - ideas, conversations, revelations, objects, sounds, images, and reflections - are often too much to bear. Systems of understanding and history are dragged from one person, one family, one culture, to the next; prejudices, traditions, and values hitched along for the long journey forward in time. We cling to ourselves often to the exclusion of true logic, collective progress, or common sense, resisting anything that even hints at a risk to our sense of self. Distilled from years of cultural memory in all its various forms, the modern human condition is just plain nuts. The accompanying ideas of conflict, angst, optimism, desire, frustration, longing, fury, loss, and potential-but-thwarted humanistic development are my obsessions and baggage.

Dooser
White earthenware, underglaze, wood, paint, plexiglass, mixed media

My current work is an attempt to harness the power and anxiety of these uncertainties from behind a self-defensive position of the dumb and frivolous. Packaged in slick, colorful, concentrated bundles nodding to both the knick-knack and the souvenir, I attempt to both mask and reveal my unease with the world and culture around me from behind a disarming disguise of foolishness. Instantly read as odd, funny, weird, or goofy, I think of my work as the punch line delivered before the set-up. In working backwards towards discovering the actual joke, confusion, uncertainty, and disorientation take hold -- if only for a brief instant -- and the darker things bubble up and momentarily gain prominence.

Tears, Fears, & Rears

Ceramic, underglaze, silken cord

Through humor, one is able to linger just a bit longer in what would otherwise be dangerous territory. When wading in these murky waters without such a protective layer, I feel that I have overstayed my welcome. In order to cope, I bundle and combine stuff, associations, and histories into surreptitious tableaus that seek to undermine one’s self-assured understanding of identity and experience. Ultimately, I am a stand-up comedian who doesn't want the attention.

- Nathan Prouty