James Aarons Works

James Aarons: Artist Statement

"I am a reformed modern dancer and ceramic artist who moonlights as a bread baker and yoga  teacher. Clay, bread and yoga share the necessity of exploring space in combination with earthy  materials. Plus heat. As if by a gentle stroke of magic, each discipline transforms the ordinary  (clay, flour and body) into the extraordinary (vividly colored stony forms, deliciously fermented food and limber consciousness). Whether it’s making a drawing of a line or articulating a direction in space through fluid manipulation, the quality of the movement that creates the mark or gesture is what attracts me most. 

My current ceramic work is a collection of imaginary landscapes drawing upon the physical  properties of geomorphic processes. Tectonic shifts, glacial moraines, the erosive forces of rain  and wind upon sediment – these are the incremental movements I looked to for inspiration. Plus,  after years of creating crisp geometric forms with clay and glaze I decided it was time to see what else my materials might offer. Their silting, slaking nature seemed ripe for mining a new direction and a fresh attitude toward the illusion of control. 

Conversely, other explorations take me on a journey of time travel. Anonymous photographs haunt my imagination and form the backbone of a series of ceramic prints. When something as temporal as paper is recast as a thin sheet of porcelain, it takes on the perception of permanence. But slip and it will shatter into splinters of cold, sharp dust erasing the images printed upon it back into faded memory. 

As for the business of bread, Flour Arrangement is a budding enterprise serving the hungry mouths of local fans in Mokelumne Hill, CA. 

Teaching yoga rounds out my professional life with public classes in Jackson and Sutter Creek, CA along with a small private practice for students interested in individual care and attention."