Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Liz Vukelich. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Liz, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
One of the projects I’m the most excited about is a series called “Offering Cups.” Essentially, they are pairs of pointy-bottomed wood-fired cups, one with a hole in the bottom and one without. The participant pours into both cups. One drains out into the earth and the other is drunk from. It’s a way to both spend time with and make an offering for someone no longer with us. In return for the cups (which I ship out to people who request them and will give away at my thesis show), people send me back a postcard about their experience. I have gotten some beautiful feedback so far, and people use these cups in really creative ways. I just got a postcard back today of someone who took his cups to a rose garden in Balboa Park. He poured out an offering for his mother at sunrise and scattered her ashes. He told her how much he missed her as they drank black coffee together. Another participant poured for her grandmother, using the kitchen sink. They wrote that the night their grandmother died “she was up late playing cards, drinking, and hanging out with close friends and family” in the kitchen, so spending time with her at the kitchen sink felt right. They also wrote that this experience brought “happy tears” to their eyes. Another wrote that he had spent a lot of time thinking about his late father, but had never had the chance to have a drink with him before because his father had died before he was born. This ritual helps people process grief and time to sit with someone they love.
Liz, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I have worked with clay since I was seventeen, and got started via a happy accident. My college education started early, and in my first semester senior year I took my first ceramics class because I needed one more studio course for an art minor. I don’t have many moments where one decision altered my whole life’s path, but this one that changed my life. As soon as I gained enough skill to make pots that people could actually use I was spending more time in the studio than at the library working towards my thesis. Making art that people actually touched and interacted with felt subversive and intimate. I knew after my next ceramics class that I had to make work in clay for the rest of my life. I didn’t know the how, but I knew the what. I then went on to apprentice with Simon Levin and assist Liz Lurie and Peter Beasecker before going to graduate school at Alfred University.
I made pots for about a decade, and towards the end of that time began making pots that were hard to use on purpose. For example, I made a series of trough-shaped mugs that one mentor told me had an ambiguous relationship to the ground. You had to balance them in your hand and set them down very carefully to use them. This intentional difficulty helped people slow down and be intentional about how they ate or drank. Now I make relational sculpture-sculpture that people interact with and facilitate interactions with others. These sculptures help people reckon with mortality as well as connect us with each other while we are still here, while we still live. I want to help people make the most of the time we still have. In the United States, we do not have many rituals to process grief or remember those we have lost. We also do not connect intimately with others in the gallery space. My work changes that. I am the most proud of an ongoing project called “Cups for Drinking Together.” People’s unexpected joy, laughter, and closeness with each other while using this piece and others like it motivates my studio practice.
The first sentence of my MFA thesis is “We are all dying.” The emphasis on my work though, is life and connection as much as it is about loss and mourning. They are two sides of the same coin.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
Yes! After my apprenticeship with Simon Levin, I got accepted into a graduate program that will not be named here. It was a toxic environment, and the faculty that I connected to most kept getting opportunities elsewhere and leaving. I finally joined their exodus when one third of my thesis committee left over the summer before my thesis year. I couldn’t think of anyone to replace her with. I spent two years there out of a three year program and was afraid that I would never get into another graduate program or have a studio space to work from. Simon actually helped me make the decision to leave and offered to rent me his old studio for fifty dollars a month (which is more of a gift than a rental). This gave me a soft place to land and a place to keep making work. I sold pots at craft fairs and online for a couple of years while recovering from that experience. Now I’m almost done with a much better and healthier graduate program. The journey has not been straightforward but I’m really excited about the work I’m making now.
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
Relational Aesthetics! It’s a theory that came about in the nineties and a term coined by French art critic and theorist Nicolas Bourriaud. If you don’t want to read an admittedly very dense book translated from French, it basically states that with this type of work, the art is in the interactions between people and the relationships those interactions prompt rather than the art object itself. I want my work to be judged by the experiences people have with it. I remember being very angry with this theory when I first learned about it in art history class! I didn’t think it gave the history of pottery enough (or any) credit. Now I find it brilliant and foundational as a lens to view my practice through.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.lizvukelich.com
- Instagram: @lizellaslip
Image Credits
Image 5- Justin Fogarty