MISSTER PASSING (Chicago. IL, USA): MANIFESTO! (PENISWAVE)

MISSTER PASSING presents PENISWAVE: a sexy lecture featuring post passing clay prosthetics and all you can eat earthenware – don\’t forget the slipware splashzone…things might get saucy!

I use clay to adapt the body I was given; to extend and abstract the form I was assigned. The weighted material that makes up my identity is parallel to the malleable quality of the clay. I use the potter’s wheel and performative handbuilding together to push the greenware body while still retaining a form suggestive of the vessel. This process relates similarly to the trans* body which has undergone personal transitional experiences. Undergoing multiple firings, the clay body adapts and reacts to its environment, similar to my own experiences of passing socially. Working in the fine art context that this creates, my ceramics are trans* chameleons that adapt to the spaces they are in – even after firing. As objects that continue to grow throughout their lives of appropriated function, these ceramics inherit new glaze or treatments as they age, as the body, as the trans* body. By relating performatively and bodily to the vessels I create, I work with clay’s ability to express its trans*ness through an unending performative process. ARTIST’S WEBSITE