Vessel

The form of the teapot is, as the chair is for the designer or the pavilion for the architect, a site of experimentation for clay artists, and comparing teapots made by different artists is an interesting way to allow Museum visitors to understand moments of convergence and divergence in experimentation in one particular medium. Karl Yost, in the words of his gallery, “uses his ceramic forms to explore subtleties in the landscape of the western United States. His work is concerned with the shapes and textures of the geography and with the jewelry-like intimacy of the small found objects that so many of us are drawn to while exploring woodlands, deserts, mountains and sea shores.” His work treats small and overlooked fragments like bones, wood, and rocks as significant source materials for exploring universal topics like decay, erosion, and the natural landscape through his ceramic forms that, through abstraction, are sculptures more than they are utilitarian objects.