Upstream Traveling Tea Trailer
10’ x 5’ x 8’
Trailer, wood, cushions, porcelain, paper, tea, conversation
2018
2018 Open Studio Fellow
Artist Statement
Storytelling is at the heart of the work I do as an artist. Interaction and relationship between people is one of the primary outcomes of my work. As a maker of things, I also consider the language of pottery. Its quiet tactility in the service of food and drink is the mechanism by which human connections have been made for centuries, and I see the ceramic vessel as a pathway to empathy. Clay, a medium that finds its way into every home as a sink, a dish or a decorative object, is a ubiquitous and tactile material. In my work, I use it as a springboard for connection and collaboration.
As a child in rural Virginia, much of my time was spent building forts in creek gullies and blazing pathways through wooded brambles. As an artist, the wild and living world informs the stories I tell through my creative practice: the tart juiciness of a sun-warmed blackberry, a swollen river at dawn, the miraculous internal vibrations of a beehive in the depth of a frigid MN winter. All of these examples contribute to the form, texture and purpose of the pieces I make. I also think about the conflicts that have given rise to our environmental crisis: the gap in access to healthy food that exists between the privileged and the impoverished; the tension between agriculture and water quality; or a beekeeper’s hive that dies because of a neighbor’s lawn pesticide. It is easy to see these as local or microscopic conflicts, but I see them as linked to a much larger story: our kinship to land and water. I believe that through sharing memories and stories about the places where we call home, we will deepen the relationship we have with the resources that are necessary for human survival. Imbedded in this, are the relationships we share with each other.
Anna Metcalfe
Born: Apple Valley, CA, USA, 1978
Resides: Minneapolis, MN, USA
Education
MFA, University of Minnesota, 2009
BA, College of William and Mary, 2001