Susan Neet Goodwin

.....It pleased me to walk into the controversial new Denver airport and find Betty Woodman's pots used architectonically in a common area. It seemed a fitting tribute to a Boulder , Colorado resident and very accomplished artist. Many years ago Betty Woodman gave a workshop at Wesleyan Potters in Middletown , CT which I attended. I loved seeing the process of her art while she spoke of the influences of her summer trips to the Aegean Sea . She talked about her life, and juggling the commitments to her family, her children, and to her craft. I was young with children of my own and I was struggling financially. I listened hard to her thoughts on tenacity. It was difficult, but I bought a well used downdraft kiln which I relocated to my backyard, brick by brick. I had an old, but true kick wheel so I got to work and began selling through a small craft guild. Money did drive many of my decisions, so when asked, I made huge paper sculptures and decorated a local mall with seasonal displays. I displayed fabric at home goods trade shows in NYC and managed a passable job in advertising illustration for local merchants. Through it I kept making pots, functional cone 10 pieces that sold relatively well. It also kept my appreciative family in dishes while I started investigating slab cylinders as plant forms, and large floor pots. During that time I took part in master classes and workshops led by the greats as Toshiko Takaesu, Don Reitz, Daniel Rhodes, Bryon Temple, and Betty Woodman. I watched, I practiced and I was constantly reminded of my first clay teacher's demands: Make your pots feel pregnant, bursting with life and fullness. I returned home to attempt to achieve some of the fluidity I had witnessed at the workshops, in both thrown pieces and the tall, slab built plant-related forms.

.....When my younger child was school aged I sought the security of a teaching position. It was never a second-best job for me. I love working with high school kids and teaching the arts was rarely anything other than joy. At the back of my mind though there was a space for considering what I would do when I stopped teaching. The job led me in directions I would not have taken had I remained a practicing potter. My interest in people took on a very important role when I met a group of students who lacked confidence and the required risk taking trait to plunge into sculpture. Fortunately the pupils became highly involved designing and developing a 12x8 foot clay mural for the foyer of the high school. Their theme was world peoples, representing groups from all the continents. The project was wonderfully successful. It graces the foyer of the school even now, and it speaks of the international perspectives of that class.

.....My own first piece in which the human face was an important feature was a response to the Iranian hostage crisis of November 1979. Since then many of my sculptures have become vehicles for political and humanitarian concerns. I pay tribute to world peoples, investigating their unique and beautiful characteristics. For some, time is of the essence because they suffer from cultural dilution, adaptation, annihilation, or simply from small and dwindling numbers, while others are part of the homogenization of humankind in which distinctive identities are put aside or lost. I concentrate on what makes each group unique, but I sculpt the similarities as well.

.....Ten years ago, in preparation for a trip to Siberia with students, we spent much time defining what it is to be American. We found it difficult. The United States is unique because we are citizens from all parts of the world. We represent all peoples, all races, all religions, and many cultures. We are as different as we are alike and we share important human bonds. We are growing in our ability to accept each other as essential parts of our citizenry, acknowledging that our diversity is our strength. My work today is as much about the enormously diverse group of people who have become part of this country and this culture as it is about those same people living in their native lands, involved in their own cultures.

.....My studio now houses three lines of work. I make tall cylindrical pieces that are fashioned into what I gently call People Pots. Each is unique, often somewhat functional and a vessel form. In this series I allow myself to enjoy clay, unrestricted by trying to be true to a particular group of people. The People Pots are about feeling the clay, draping the thin slabs, and designing on the spot while building. The Citizens of the World is more about thought, about politics, about human beings and sharing commonalities with others. The series is constantly changing as I learn about various groups of people, worldwide, who struggle to embrace their unique cultures. I work for a feeling of the moment, that each sculpture represents a person in a caught particular instant. Lastly, sculptural portraiture has become an outgrowth of the other two series as people, seeing my other work, have commissioned me to sculpt portraits, primarily of their family members. I find the work rewarding because what is required is not only a likeness, but a sense of the person as well.