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Dwellings of Infinite Brightness
The Ceramic Sculptures of Chih-Chi Hsu
Article by Deborah Bedwell
Baltimore clayworks, a non profit ceramic artists’space in Baltimore, Maryland, US,
has enjoyed a flourishing east/west alliance for the past 10 years, an exchange program
with one of Asia’s premiere ceramics programs of higher education,the Tainan National
Institute of Fine Arts in Tainan, Taiwan. In this program, resident artists at Baltimore Clayworks
have spent periods of up to four months each in Tainan and artists who are MFAceramics
graduates from Tainan have worked in the residency program for even longer periods in Baltimore.
Altogether 14 artists from the two institutions have participated and both institutions benefit immeasurably from the cross-cultural exchange.
In a recently completed 11 month artists’ residency in Baltimore, young Taiwanese artist
Chih-Chi Hsu created a body of ceramic sculpture that is intriguing,sensuous and
visually deceptive. Described by Hsu, a native of Kaohsiung, a harbor city in
southern Taiwan, as simply “white organic forms”, even the artist’s representation
of this body of work belies the complexity of both the artwork and the intent
of its maker.
The pieces appear impossibly fragile, yet to the touch they feel strong and balanced.
They catch light but a turn of the viewer’s head and light is replaced by mass. The
hollows and chambers hold both light and shadow and a shift in position makes both
disappear, replaced by a sharp blade of a line that dissolves into a plane. The plane morphs
into a curve and moves on to a gentle mound. All the while the eye and the hand glide over
astonishingly silky surfaces created by intense attention to the authentic integration of form
and surface in clay.
That integration is achieved through careful and painstaking coil building with white
stoneware clay strengthened with nylon fibre. It is shaped, handled,ribbed, scraped and
the form constantly refined until it is dry. Then it is meticulously but vigorously sanded
and fired to cone 04. After this first firing, it is sanded repeatedly with finer and finer grades
of emery before it is coated with white terra sigilatta. The final firing is to cone 1 and
afterward the pieces are sanded again with successively finer grit, until the final sanding
at 1000 mesh emery produces the tactile and visual qualities of the forms that satisfy Hsu’s
exacting standards.
And what are these white evocative forms? Cups?Containers? Cells and bones?
The tumbled boulders of dreamlike topography? The viewer’s imagination can
imbue the pieces with identity, but the artist sees them as environments for her
spiritual and emotional aspirations.Midway through her residency at Baltimore
Clayworks, Hsu presented 15 of these completed sculptures in an exhibition called
A Dwelling of Infinite Brightness that was well received by a discerning audience.
Hsu’s sources of inspiration are not rooted in visual imagery of the natural world;
the works are, however,a result of a persistent examination of her own internal
landscape. She is an explorer of the terrain of her intentions and a surveyor of her
own motives for living,creating art and interacting with others. “Purity of heart”
she describes and “seeing with ‘child-eyes’ is my mission. I want to remain vulnerable
but be strong. It is common to see life as a struggle, both heavy and dark.
I want to create a life and work that has light and happiness and that becomes a symbol
for honesty and true innocence.”
The intense self-awareness of youth sits so gracefully with Hsu and has informed
the making of her work in clay and her personal relationships. Exuberant with
a joyful and engaging persona, Hsu is confident and possesses a spirit of adventure.
After her first year of graduate school, she was an exchange student at the
University of Missouri, Columbia, for five months.After her time in Missouri,
Hsu decided to go to New York. Travelling alone with little English and no personal/
professional contacts in the city, she navigated transport, found an inexpensive hotel
and managed to accomplish and enjoy a rich and informed museum and cultural visit
of two weeks that many seasoned residents of the US would find daunting.
Like the trip to New York, the residency in Missouri,a brief stint in Germany and
the eleven months in Baltimore, it is apparent that Hsu intentionally initiates
opportunities to test and to temper her principles by interacting with unfamiliar people
in unknown environments.She describes this process as “facing my fear” and describes
“a Chih-Chi who is standing in NY,sent a postcard to the unconfident Chih-Chi in Taiwan,
saying ‘No day but today. Make a list of your dreams.Be fearless’.”
By embracing and inviting the unfamiliar and the improbable, Chih-Chi Hsu uses her
vulnerability like an artistic source to provide inspiration to strengthen her art.
Hsu’s spiritual and artistic journey has not been easy.Her parents, both Ikebana artists,
begged her to become a children’s teacher with a secure position and a reliable
income. She complied, earning a bachelor’s degree in art education but then moved quickly
to enroll in the rigorous three-year MFA program at Tainan National Institute for Fine Arts,
eventually regaining the approbation and support of her family. Then in graduate school,
her youth became a major hurdle. Considerably younger than her fellow students,
without real-word experience and lacking an artistic track record, she felt dismissed,
diminished and intimidated by her peers. In ceramics classes at Tainan, however,
she came under the tutelage and mentorship of internationally respected artist/professor
Ching-Yuan Chang and, in his program, found artistic resonance and the discipline
that she craved. She credits professor Chang with validating the artistic platform for
her spiritual search and creating opportunities for her and his other students
to experience the global ceramics community.
Generations of mature makers could affirm that work in clay is an outward manifestation
of an inward leading.For a young artist of 28, however, Chih-Chi Hsu
possesses an unusually clear resolution of purpose,extraordinary personal depth and
a dynamic energy that is the genesis of her lyrical white clay dwellings.
She describes her heart as a tool: “I use my heart to make my work”, and sees the work
change slowly as she grows. She says:
Smiling is like a curve to span difficulty.
To face the heavy part of the life, I stride across with a buoyant and graceful attitude.
To face the pressures of society and over-expanding rational thinking,
I try to respond with intuition and perception.
By sculpting a poetic life dwelling, I am pursuing pure belief and value that was lost,
while accepting an unknowable future.
I am finding the possibility of fluid space and seek reality without gravity.
Deborah Bedwell is a potter and founding executive director of
Baltimore Clayworks in Baltimore, Maryland US. (www.baltimoreclayworks.org.)
Chih-Chi Hsu has returned to Kaohsiung, Taiwan and can be
reached via email at zchihsu@hotmailcom.
Ceramics: Art and Perception No. 81 2010
