peter barbor
Pittsburgh, PENNSYLVANIA, USA
Peter Barbor, pictured at work in the Ceramic and Metal Arts building at the University of Washington, where he earned his MFA in 2017
Peter Barbor, To Stand Is To Lean, 2019. Clay, fiber, wire, pigment. 36” x 14” x 72”. Unfired sculpture temporarily installed on the grounds of the Archie Bray Foundation during my 2019 residency.
Peter Barbor, Androsphinx, 2019. Clay, straw, wire, burlap. 40” x 18” x 42”
Despite entering an open relationship with clay in graduate school, my proclivities as a maker have always been tied to the material. It’s a first love. Even without firing, clay is about transformation and performance. In a world that feels increasingly divided, few materials come to mind as common denominators.
The mythological connection between earth and the body guides many of my works. My engagement with clay almost always depends on armatures, and recently, I have begun to recognize that these armatures are both physical and conceptual. When clay works in conjunction with other materials, it radically shifts its identity. Porosities in material can point to an openness in subject matter. Armatures permit unfired works to exist beyond their expected lifespans. Looking at the inflexible structures that govern our present, I find myself preoccupied with mortality. I wonder if at times I am an apologist for ailing mythologies.
Disruption is an antidote.
Before the shutdown, I strived to be as mobile as possible: in 2019 I worked as a visiting professor and complete several residencies, but that itinerant lifestyle left me underprepared for the isolating realities of this pandemic. I am grateful for the enforced pause because, in hindsight, I think 2020 called for a personal reset. The Coronavirus interrupted my residency at The Clay Studio in Philadelphia, and as the shutdown persisted, I realized the need for change. The pandemic has called me home and, in returning, I feel I can see which parts of my practice are true and which were formed through fleeting circumstances.
While quarantining at my parents’ home in western Pennsylvania, I began to dig and screen clay. This was a first for me, playing outside with the same soil in a completely unrefined way as a child. It is grounding to harness the material beneath our feet.
Leaving clay unfired, I sometimes like to imagine my figurative works are holding their breath. Upon exhaling, the image they’ve sustained will slake down, blow away, or fall to pieces. Unfired resolutions have never felt more appropriate to me than now. A figure made of clay is adjacent to our bodies. To be made and remade through a medium of embodied uncertainty is what it feels like to wake each day as an artist and an American.
Peter Barbor, Ecce Homo, 2019. Clay, fiber, wire, wood. 36” x 36” x 72”
during the pandemic, PETER BARBOR has been DIGGING CLAY, and starting to get traction with his recipes for a stabilized yet unfired clay body, to produce longer-lived unfired work
Peter Barbor, in-progress work, 2020. Clay, cement, wire, straw, wood, newspaper. “Without kiln access, it has become even more necessary to find viable unfired solutions. This is an experiment in mixing a self-firing clay, using blunged newspaper as a fiber binder and Portland cement as a hardener.”
Peter Barbor, Drying Clay, 2020. “I found ochre colored clay outside my parents’ home. I dried the clay before screening it for large rocks and other impurities.”
Peter Barbor, armature for in-progress work, 2020. “My armatures are rarely more than fencing wire and scrap wood to start. Armatures allow me to see a work before it’s realized, opening the process to other materials alongside clay.”
Peter Barbor, Clay Screening Set, 2020. “With little more than household tools and window screen, I was able to refine clay from my mother’s garden beds.”
Peter Barbor, in-progress work, 2020, close-up of clay/straw mixture. “A scrappy mixture of blunged newspaper, cement, straw, and clay being freshly applied to an armature.”
Peter Barbor, detail of in-progress work, 2020. Clay, cement, wire, straw, wood, newspaper. “As the cement sets, it’s interesting to see how the different parts of this mixture work together. It adopts properties of paper, cement, and clay in its hardened state.”