Jamie Lea Johnson

My first teapots I thought resembled birds, astronauts, or even robots.  My sets were usually made as families, neighborhoods, and communities.  My pots were always people, and my people are always pots, or vessels. 

What is a vessel?  One might think of a dish holding food or drink for sustenance, but that is only the beginning.  A vessel is something that contains or holds; both physically and metaphysically.  A favorite bowl that holds comfort food can warm the heart as much as the hands or belly.  A mother that holds her child also carries (unseen) hopes and dreams about that little life’s future. 

I currently enjoy making human vessels to embody spiritual and psychological contents.  It is a thread that has been a part of my clay work since the beginning- that I like to animate things.  In this way, I have always been a vessel-maker, even when I was a toddler making portraits of everyone I knew. 

Clay is alive: on the molecular level, in your hands, and hopefully when you’re done.  Everything has its own character, or personality.  Once I see/understand what that is, it’s my job to let those characteristics shine.