We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Emily Potts a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Emily, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

The most meaningful project I have worked on to date is my MFA thesis exhibition “Healing & Reassembling”. In this body of work, I focus to overcome the assumption that in order to heal something has to be completely resolved within the self. Instead, I offer that healing is an undescribed area, that is unmeasurable, and it is forever evolving and never finished. I believe that healing is an ongoing process, never fully attained. This is replicated in the imperfect nature of the objects I make. I am not interested in chasing after a memory and seeking its validity or truth as a representation of what actually happened. I am however interested in embracing the uncertainty of an object and the memory tied to it.

For instance, “The Tub” in this exhibition was a collaborative project between my mother and I. I could not identify why, but I knew I needed to recreate this tub that visually represented my early developmental years. In one of the very first and few memories I can recall, I very vividly saw the cast iron clawfoot bathtub thinking how odd it was for a bathtub to be so animated. How could a tub have feet of a beast? When drawing inspiration on my thesis work, I felt that the further I investigate into this tub, the more I could maybe remember about that period in my life. A time I long for. Because I could not fully recall this tub and had no available images to go off of, I reached out to my mom over text and asked her to draw this tub and text it back to me. She quickly replied to my message with a squiggled drawing on a pad of paper, her genuine sensibility with line and gesture drew a tub that in it’s own rights I believed was a work of art, and I was further surprised to see to the side of this drawing she left a note: “I just woke up”. I knew this small, quick note was the start of an actual life-sized recreated and reimaged tub that could offer a new body of work.

I often use highly modifiable and unconventional materials in order to capture the dystopian aspects of memory. I keep dissecting the perspective of the form over and over again to challenge the inherent truth to that object in terms of where it belongs in my own memory or even familial memories. Each material and discipline works as a lens or way of viewing an object, constantly questioning its validity. A drawing of a tub does not offer the same representation as a sculptural rendering of that same tub. Each acts as a processing of form but can also hold life events and unexplained phenomena. With each render of an object, a different narrative is being told.

I am using ceramic pipes, extruded, and manipulated by hand, to create the network between the bathroom forms. I wanted to imagine the pipes that are not seen in a bathroom and bring them to the surface– but in an unrealistic, imperfect, and nonfunctional way. The pipes are white with a graphic black line that reinforces a dystopian perspective of memory. At times these pipes are seemingly fit for working properly, but at other times they are clogged, backed up, and not attended to and therefore cause the whole network to malfunction. My overall vision for my work is to simulate the gesture and sensibility of a figure into systems that extend outside of the body but still allude to it. A pipeline system is the perfect illustration of this. This network exists to transport natural resources, and the development of the system is dependent upon the consumer’s demand. However, in my pipeline system, I imagine the pipes are disrupted, disturbed, and unable to perform the function they were intended for. The pipes that I make become a metaphor for malfunctions within our own bodily systems. Not only do they mimic the gesture of a wilted body they also mimic the dilapidation of the internal structure within the body.

Similarly, to my interest in memories tied to objects, I am also interested in the subjective and andromorphic aspects that allude to a body. I hope to create a class that opens curiosity to the concept of a body as means of memory and how this can offer a way to talk about barriers and division between a body something outside that body and as an emotional and social division. I also ask them to engage with the idea of the body as a vessel, considering this as an entry point to talking about identity and response to healing.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Emily Potts (b. TX, USA) is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice gives material form to invisible and chronic conditions. Emily’s research focuses on the relationship between the brain, the mind and the body in processing and healing from trauma. Her sculptures give material forms to her childhood memories, and she works in a wide variety of media, from traditional materials like ceramics and wood to unconventional materials like paper pulp and bubble gum. The unique sculptural forms she creates are made by hand to have strange and childlike qualities, so they are familiar but also strange and somewhat unsettling. Her artwork asks us to experience discomfort and acknowledge our imperfections. Emily’s research is important because it is a story about the resilience and courage required to share and recover from trauma. Emily has exhibited,nationally, including exhibited in AXA Art Prize 2020 traveling from The San Francisco Art Institute in San Francisco, Kavi Gupta Gallery in Chicago, and New York Academy of Art in New York. Emily will graduate with a MFA in Sculpture (Spring 2022) from University of North Texas in Denton, TX where she also worked as graduate assistant, teaching assistant, and teaching fellow.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

Bren  Brown and Besssel Van Der Kolk are influential in my current body of artwork. Bren  Brown is an American professor, lecturer, author and has spent decades studying the topics of courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy. Bessel van der Kolk MD has spent his professional life studying how children and adults adapt to traumatic experiences. He translates emerging findings from neuroscience and attachment research to develop and study a range of effective treatments for traumatic stress and developmental trauma in children and adults.

: Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

The purpose of this journey is to create an expanded body of work that speaks to the resilience of the human psyche. My research uncovers the intersection of uncertainty, memory, and objects.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://emilygracepotts.com/work
• Instagram: freespiral_
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/emily.potts.9678/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-potts-b25690a4/

Image Credits
Instagram Handle: @visionandverve @wesleykirk @ericalfuchs @thomas.petty.art