Groundbeing: Resonance

Artist Rose B. Simpson notes that “Clay is like the body of our mother. And when you work with it, it’s not the end of it.” The material has been a part of her practice since childhood, when her mother, the ceramicist Roxanne Swentzell, would give her a small chunk of clay to distract her. Simpson would then mold it into different forms—and sometimes eat it. To this day, she continues working with clay in the experimental mode of her youth. Glazes reminiscent of tattoos and graffiti cover part of the surface of Groundbeing: Resonance, powerfully evoking Simpson’s “relationship to process and to a spiritual or psychological journey.” As she explains about her practice, clay is a material that to her “records emotion.”