Large Jar with Bird Handles, 19 in. (48 cm) in height, wheel thrown with handbuilt handles and sgraffito decoration, earthenware, built by Kelleher and decorated by Teruyama, 2008.
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Large Bird with Lotus Necklace, 11 in. (28 cm) in height, slab built on bisque mold, coiled additions with sgraffito decoration, earthenware, built by Kelleher and decorated by Teruyama, 2008.
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Shoko Teruyama’s Flower Plate with Bird Walking, 9 in. (23 cm) in diameter, slab built on a bisque mold with sgraffito decoration, earthenware, 2007.
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Matt Kelleher’s Oval Trencher, 12 in. (30 cm) in diameter, slab built on a bisque mold, soda fired stoneware, 2007.
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The Poetics of Collaboration:
Shoko Teruyama and Matt Kelleher
by Katey Schultz
with Finding a Third Voice, by Shoko Teruyama and Matt Kelleher
In collaboration, it is always difficult to decipher where the work of one artist stops and another artist begins. Perhaps this is why the most successful collaborations speak in a new voice, a voice discovered spontaneously through joint exploration and the dissolution of ego. During the course of their three-year residency at Penland School of Crafts, Penland, North Carolina, (www.penland.org) artists and life partners Shoko Teruyama and Matt Kelleher have discovered how the concepts of ego and identity can dissipate through collaboration. In the process, their individual bodies of work have matured and their faith in the poetics of collaboration has flourished.
Originally from Japan, Teruyama began her formal studies in clay in the mid-nineties at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), later earning an M.F.A. from Wichita State. While tradition and ceremony were a part of her daily life in Japan, it wasn’t until leaving her homeland that she began to explore these concepts in clay. In developing her own body of work, Teruyama has created forms and surface designs that reference ceremony but contain a sense of humor and playfulness unique to her own vision.
Teruyama makes boxes, intimate bowls, small plates, vases and a variety of serving pieces. The work begins with bisque molds, slab construction and coil building to make thick, heavy forms. “I like to touch every surface when I’m working,” says Teruyama, who carves, shaves and sands excess clay away to slowly reveal the final shape. Puffy handles, rippled or petal-like edges, and intricate patterns mark Teruyama’s work as her own, which, in the end, captures a fine balance between calmness and celebrated intricacy.
“It was a big adventure to leave my culture behind. Now I look back at it and draw from it. I almost had to leave it to discover who I am, but that wasn’t ever my intention. I love my country and my family, but there is a sense of freedom from everything when you leave something like that. The birds that appear in my work represent this sense of freedom,” says Teruyama.
Sometimes the birds appear to dance, float or fly through Teruyama’s signature vine and floral patterns. Other times, they adorn the edges of her work in various poses, such as her trademark owl smoking a pipe or a walking bird that wears Western boots. “This is my way of being playful,” says Teruyama. “Birds are approachable. For me, I look at the owl and think, ‘What else would an owl be doing?’ Owls are leisurely. They sit. Birds, they can go anywhere. They walk and move, so of course they’re wearing Western boots. In my mind, it makes sense.”
While Teruyama relies more on patterns and images to create mood, Kelleher’s work seems almost minimalist in contrast. Mood is created through depth and color revealed in the soda-firing process, and he creates forms with every intention of allowing for this possibility. As Kelleher has expressed, “I combine a subtle balance of geometry in form, a comparison of symmetry and asymmetry in decoration and a serene surface. Softly, the work asks for the viewer’s attention.”
While he focuses on utilitarian objects for their universality, it is important to him not to be limited by process. Kelleher, who also studied at UNL, spent a long time searching for personal forms, perhaps the most notable of which are his trenchers. Trenchers, which look like robust dough bowls harkening back to the pioneers as they crossed America, allow for a maximum sense of depth with the slips and firing.
Kelleher uses pouring and layering techniques and applies minimal glazes over the slip to achieve a particular effect. “I want these forms to be like a window for the display into a vast landscape,” he says. Much of his work also incorporates a single, bold, blue dot that punctuates the surface activity and creates immediate depth. At times the dot feels loud and close, other times it feels subtle and distant, as though resting on a far-off horizon. “That dot could be a bird, for example,” says Kelleher. “What I like about the lack of specific meaning in a dot is that it can become more metaphorical.”
By necessity, the cultivation of an individual body of work requires paying allegiance to some elements of craft while giving less importance to others. When considering his own body of work, Kelleher is so wedded to minimal use of slips and glazes that his forms act primarily as a vehicle for the expression of mood. His parameters for form are distinct, but the possibilities in soda firing are wide open. Teruyama, on the other hand, is so inclined toward pattern and movement through imagery and lines, that her forms tend to be enjoyed more on display than in day-to-day use. Her surface design parameters are meticulous but the expression in her work is expansive. For both, the benefit of collaboration is release from some of these parameters.
Birds, as it turns out, have become the figure and form that most wholly embodies the new voice of the artists’ collaborative work. While they also collaborate on large jars, small cups and various serving dishes, their latest and most provocative works are the large bird forms (roughly 12×24×13 inches), which are handbuilt by Kelleher and decorated by Teruyama.
“I kept joking with Shoko, telling her to just make the bird rather than spend so much time drawing it. Then I was working on lids for my fry pan forms, which worked their way into the large bird form. Now, when I work on the collaborative pieces, I feel very freed by the process, because I can work with familiar forms in an entirely new way, wondering how Shoko will decorate a certain piece,” says Kelleher.
“The way you make work from the construction to the decoration stage is like a story from beginning to end,” says Teruyama. “When I do my own work, I get to tell that whole story. With the collaboration, I have some idea of where it’s going but it’s never quite the same. The collaboration can be limiting, but it’s also an interesting way to change myself. I enjoy the problem solving part of it. It’s like, ‘Hmmm...What am I going to do with this one?’”
Through collaboration, Kelleher has found freedom in form—an interesting switch considering that the primary message in Teruyama’s individual work is that of freedom. Likewise, Teruyama has found a way toward self-discovery within the set parameters of an unfamiliar form—equally interesting given that Kelleher’s individual work makes its personal mark first and foremost through form.
From November 21–December 31, the artists’ collaborative and individual work will be shown at The Signature Shop & Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia, in a retrospective show intended to portray the growth of all three bodies of work during the course of their Penland residency. See www.thesignatureshop.com.
At the conclusion of their Penland residency this year, Kelleher and Teruyama will move to Marshall, North Carolina, to build a home and studio. To learn more about the artists, visit their websites at www.mattkelleher.com and www.shokoteruyama.com.
the author Katey Schultz writes from her home in Fork Mountain, North Carolina. Her current projects include a series of essays about artists and a collection of lyrical essays about adolescence. Learn more at http://katey.schultz.googlepages.com.
Finding a Third Voice
by Shoko Teruyama and Matt Kelleher
Kelleher: The whole idea for our collaboration was to come up with something we could share the labor in and market as a third body of work. We set some parameters first: I wouldn’t use any of my personal forms and Shoko wouldn’t use any of her personal decorative motifs. We completed a number of pieces before admitting the lack of inspiration we felt from the work. I think our egos prevented the collaboration from growing.
Teruyama: At first, the collaborative work didn’t look personal. We felt like we weren’t in the work at all…and it’s funny, because of course we knew that from our own experience. We knew that in order to feel good about it we’d have to be in it, but we just got so wrapped up in protecting our individualities that we forgot that lesson. The reason we ignored it is because we had so much ownership over our own ideas.
Kelleher: Our biggest growth during our three-year residency at Penland has been shedding those voices of what it ‘should be’ and finding voices of what ‘could be.’ Our idealism has since digressed, if that’s the right word. We’ve grown into the point with our collaborative work where ego is almost gone. We have major ego with our own work still [laughter], but as far as our collaborations, we want to focus on making something that has both of us in it.
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