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Casey Taylor | Episode 697
Casey Taylor found ceramics in college. After focusing on illustration, painting, and drawing, Casey took an ‘intro to ceramics’ class as an elective and never looked back. Casey focused on ceramic sculpture in school, though she was always drawn to pottery because of the tangible connection between the maker and the user. Now working as an artist, Casey is finding new ways to combine sculpture and pottery into functional art objects.
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Casey, I’m really curious. What do you call your work?
That is a tough question. I don’t know, I guess like a functional sculpture. At this point that would probably be the most appropriate term. Definitely weird. For sure weird has to be thrown in there.
Happiness maker is what I would call it.
Thank you! That’s really what I want to do. That’s the goal. If you can smile and laugh at yourself a little while you are drinking your morning coffee on a Monday, you know, not wanting to go to work, that’s ideal.
How important is it when you are doing experiments to have a very defined objective that you are trying to achieve?
I think that I would say it is very important. I do think about what I am trying to achieve but I am very open to the possibility of finding something that wasn’t what I was looking for.
Do you record the steps that you are taking in a book or on your computer or something like that?
A little bit. I have gotten better at it because I have definitely done things that have turned out great and I have no idea what happened. So recently I have been a little better at keeping track of the amounts that I add into things or at least writing down-one big scoop from this particular spoon that I have in my studio as a measurement.
What resources do you turn to when you are trying to find the answer to a problem that you have in your experimentation?
Well, I am really, really lucky in that I have my group of friends from school, from ceramics. Our program was very close knit in that we were all friends with each other. So we have continued to talk years after graduating. And we have an Instagram thread where we mostly send each other memes, but occasionally it will be really helpful when one of us has a question. An if people don’t have answers then at least we can guide each other towards sort of the right area to look in.
What medium do you use to do your recording?
It used to be my sketchbook but honestly after college I haven’t really sketched a lot. So I start using a spiral bound notebook and it’s always fun to get a new notebook. At the beginning of fall I was like, You know, I am going to get myself a really cute aqua spiral bound notebook and it’s pretty to look at so I am going to want to write in it. And it worked! So far so good. I have been actually writing things down.
Do you despise failures in your experimentation or do you just go-Oh, chalk that up for learning?
I have gotten so much better at chalking it up to learning. There’s been a lot. But you know, honestly too it helps having people around that don’t do ceramics because they will see something you did that you hate and and they will be like, Can I have it? Are you going to throw it away? I usually ask my friends or my family before I throw something away. Usually someone wants it and it brings the value back to failure.
Trying to redeem Covid life, what is your favorite Covid activity?
That’s a tough one. I have actually really been having fun trying to figure out new ways to sort of exist. I used to work in the service industry so my life before this was very chaotic and this has been much more calming. I have been sewing definitely more than usual. Fiber has always been something that I have really loved to use in my practice but it doesn’t really make sense for what I am doing with ceramics at the moment. So sewing and also taking walks. One of my really good friends and I will periodically take walks around Kingston together and it’s really lovely, not going anywhere and just doing a loop or two.
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Instagram: @caassey