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Alex Arden | Episode 1265
Alex Arden is a high school art and ceramics teacher with an MFA in Ceramic Arts and 19 years of experience guiding others in creative practice. After years devoted to teaching, Alex is reclaiming studio space and returning to a personal ceramic practice—exploring new ideas, forms, and a renewed relationship with clay.
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I appreciate, Alex, that you wanted to take a one-year break and just give your brain a chance to reset. And that one year stretched out to 2 to 3 to 5 to 8 years, and you realize, Oh my word, my studio’s getting dusty. So let’s clean it up. Let’s put it back together. And thus you started Project Reclaim. When you are doing this, do you feel that you are returning to something you left behind or you are beginning something new?
It is a little mix of both. So I’m picking up how I have always viewed myself as a person, but I find it exciting to start something new.
Do you find yourself a little bit nervous about, guy, will you have the chops to make what you want to make?
I’m less nervous about abilities, but more nervous about will I be able to follow through with the time commitment.
Do you feel like by going public that that gave you a bunch of accountability?
I think the idea of being held accountable to the public eye is part of what drives me. I think if I’m setting out to create a video, well then I have to make the things to record. And I find that to be really motivating for me too.
You had taken for so long you thought of yourself more or did you think more of yourself as a teacher than as an artist?
I’ve always viewed myself as an artist first. However, maybe it’s just how I approach teaching where I just bring that to the classroom every day.
As a teacher, your grading and letting students know their progress. How will you be grading yourself now as you’re going to be making in the studio on your own?
Boy, that is a great question. I think I’m going to set out to have some markers to indicate success. The first one being literally just renovating the studio, creating a space for myself again. And then as I move along, there’ll be more checkpoints that I can define and hopefully complete successfully.
Do you feel like your work is going to look different than what you were making for your MFA?
I think it will look different, but there’s something about textural kind of authentic materials. I did a lot of atmospheric firing. I’d love for some of those things to return in new work in new ways.
If you knew no one else was looking and you didn’t have the accountability of the internet and your friends and family now, if you knew nobody else was looking, what would you make?
I think I would always do a mix of functional pots, cups particularly. I love cups, but I’m always going to explore sculpture, big, expressive, experimental, and a lot of them are going to fail and I won’t worry about it because it’ll be fun to make.
Book
Studio Thinking by Lois Hetland, Ellen Winner, Shirley Veenema, and Kimberly M. Sheridan
Contact
Instagram: @Alex.arden.studio