Photo by Rob Frasier
BIO-
Bonilyn Parker is a Teaching Artist living and working on Lingít Aaní as a Term Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Alaska Southeast. Born and raised on the ancestral lands of the Denaʼina, she discovered her love of clay and Southeast Alaska in 2004. Parker earned a BA in Ceramics and Sculpture from UAS in 2012 and an MFA in Ceramics from the Ohio University in 2015. After spending another four years as an art educator and pursuing artist residencies in the lower 48, she has made her way back and set up her studio at her home in Juneau, Alaska.
ARTIST STATEMENT-
I believe in the importance of hand-made objects in an increasingly disposable world. Contemporary issues associated with waste, commercial manufacturing and consequential practices such as repurposing, recycling, and the DIY movement influence my work. Embellished with the suggestion of mending, my vessels commemorate the endangered art of repair. Working in clay, I explore the spaces that exist between maker and user, disposable and reusable, sentimental and material value. Through experiencing a handcrafted object, I urge my audience to consider the cost of a throwaway culture and the significance of the items we keep in our lives.
My current body of work is made from layers of torn and cut sections of porcelain slabs impressed with textures from “disposable” items such as newspaper, bubble wrap and cardboard, resembling ghosts of the items we leave behind. I assemble the pieces in a way that is reminiscent of scraps of fabric that might be found in a patchwork quilt. Careful placement of slip cast and press molded sections of single use items such as plastic bottles, styrofoam containers and aluminum cans collaged with care for treatment of the seams suggest ideas of repurposing, mending and resourceful use of a byproduct. Through my playfully constructed pottery forms I seek to express the hopeful and progressive energy that I see in the changing world around me; the magic feeling that comes from creative repair.