andy nasisse

Andy Nasisse is currently a Professor of Art at the University of Georgia in Athens. In addition to his ceramic work, he has written numerous reviews and articles and lectured extensively on visionary and folk art in America.

Although you live in Georgia, you grew up and studied in Colorado. Has your work changed since you moved from West to South?

My work in Colorado reflected an early fascination with fossils and Indian arrowheads. I set out to handle clay and glaze in a way that mirrored the arid qualities of the Southwest; I wanted the forms, images and textures to have the feeling that they evolved from natural forces larger than those available to my hands. I still strive for this effect in my current work. Although I now incorporate images, ideas and influences from a variety of sources, I want my work to appear as a natural fossil record that always relates back to the earth and the forces of change that work upon it. There are many images associated with the Southwest that have been influential--things like petroglyphs, the Hopi creation myth, Chimayo's healing well, the Penetentes and the Sangre De Christo mountains. The scale and drama of natural forms in the Southwest is much more obvious and impressive than the Southeastern landscape. But the physical and social geography of the Southeast is subtle and manageable on a human scale. In both regions the indigenous people have an almost mystical sense of identification with their environment, but in the Southeast the horizon seems much closer and one feels larger in relation to the land and more capable of having an impact upon it. There are a lot of transformed environments like Indian mounds, Howard Finster's Paradise Garden and Saint EOM's Land of Pasaquan in the South. I've been inspired by the wealth of eccentric, self-taught artists who reside in the Southeast. I've also responded to connections between African sources and the work of artists like Royal Robertson, J.B. Murray, Juanita Rodgers and Bessie Harvie. David Butler's obsession with cutting through his material is particularly compelling--he even cut holes through the walls of his house and placed tin panels over his windows which projected light images inside. I like to think of my work as a sponge that absorbs a myriad of influences over time, transforming them into a unique language. Occasionally I'll see things in the work or identify feelings and emoitons that go back to experiences from my childhood. I like the idea that this happens in spite of my intentions for the work.

Your interest in and knowledge of folk art has been mentioned often in connection with your work. What fascinates you most about folk art and artists?

The thing which interests me most about folk, visionary or outsider art is the sense of inspired innocence it reveals. The visionary or self-taught artist often doesn't identify what he or she makes as "art." Many are illiterate and have never been to a museum or gallery. The work they make is not conditioned by society's definitions or limitations and is consequently startling and fresh; it is made out of a vital need or compulsion and the maker's motivations are pure and intense. As time goes on I see less of a distinction between trained and self-taught artists. I would rather just look at the work and let it speak for itself. It reassures me to find evidence that the need to make "art" might be a basic part of the human makeup and that the essence of this drive is inspirational rather than problematic as art history would have us believe.

What do you mean by problematic?

The academic history of art, especially Western Art, is made to look as if everything is a logical progression of formal problem solving. The emphasis is placed on those artists who fit nicely and politely into a theoretical framework. In my mind this view of the world can lead to misplaced values. For example, in an exhibition which attempts to demonstrate how modern artists have been influenced by primitive work, a painting by Picasso might be placed near an African mask. Very often the power of the source material, in this case the mask, is dimmed because it is placed next to a painting by a "master of twentieth century art."

Do you think that this historical approach has skewed our understanding of ceramic history or world history for that matter?

Definitely. The history of American ceramics is constantly being redefined. I'm often surprised at the placement of emphasis. Although interesting, I don't think American Art Pottery or the studio movement of the 20's, 30's and 40's has had much influence on contemporary work. American Indian ceramics, especially that of the Mimbres, deserves more recognition as "world class" stuff. Early southern ash glazed stoneware could keep good company with some of the best Bizen or Tamba ware; those utilitarian potters who have adopted an English-Japanese (zen) approach (Warren MacKenzie, Randy Johnston, Wayne Branum, Michael Simon) still haven't received the attention they deserve. There are a number of potters making utilitarian pieces which often have an aesthetic dimension equal to the best museum piece by studio artists. The recent changes in Eastern Europe will lead to a thorough revision of the history of that region. Historians tend to choose those facts which fit the status quo or their personal theory. American history, as I was taught in school, was essentially the history of the colonization of the American continent by white Europeans at the expense of hundreds of thousands of Black slaves and millions of native Americans. We were never taught to feel a sense of shame or guilt about the unspeakable crimes committed against those people. For that matter, I think that world history is essentially the history of male dominance and the systematic exploitation of the planet's resources with very little regard for the future.
"Discontent with civilization" has been called the driving force behind your work. What is it about civilization that you find most diconcerting and how is that dissatisfaction voiced most strongly in your art?

In our so-called civilized world, we are capable of creating inventions that can destroy our planet. We have the unique ability to reason and reflect on ourselves and our actions, yet we continue to deny that many of our priorities lead to destruction. We have seen our natural resources depleted to the critical level, we have seen forests disappear, we have killed off whole species of plants and animals and now we are seriously changing our planet's atmosphere. Our relentless pursuit of profits and possessions has become a kind of religion in itself, yet we still don't seem happy or at peace in the world. The sense of struggle and tension evident in life is reflected in my work. There is an element of violence in the erotic attractions, and while I see my figures as beings from a world of dreams and myth they also warn about the dangers of falling away from our instinctual, animal awareness.

You have been quoted a number of times as saying the primacy of rationality at the expense of intuition has depleted culture of its spirituality. Can you elaborate on this split between ration and intuition and how it influences your life and art?

The split between ration and intuition can be seen symbolically as man's original fall from grace. The inventions of the rational mind have given us tremendous power and history is full of examples of the misuse of this power. It should be obvious by now that our social systems are incapable of evolving policy or legislation that is radical enough to reverse this runaway technological train. I believe the only way to really improve the world situation is to look deep inside ourselves and make personal changes and some personal sacrifice. By changing ourselves in some simple ways we could have a profound effect on the ecology of this world. We have the ability, to a certain extent, to make our lives just as we make our art. The less of a distinction that exists between the two, the better. It's possible to see all our actions as having a level of meaning which is mythic and symbolic. For me, it is important to feel a sense of unity with nature, and the resultant temporary loss of the sense of self is invigorating. There are moments in the studio when I look back to see something new and I don't quite know where it came from. This can be a transcendent feeling, like I am part of something bigger and it is working through me.

Your use of classical vessel shapes and the female figure has many traditional implications while your treatment of each form deviates from the traditional toward the impulsive, emotional and bizarre. Can you talk about your choices of form in order to accommodate the complicated surfaces you create?

I've had a preoccupation with trying to combine opposite things and make them work together. With the vessel forms I choose classical mediterranean shapes because of the reference to a time when rational thought and ideal proportion were considered sublime. The proportions found in Greek pottery can easily be related to those found in human form so it was a natural step to make the forms figurative. Lately the shapes have become more eccentric and are closer the the improvisational nature of the surface images.

The images you use--snakes, dogs, distorted, twisted and climbing, clinging figures--are reminiscent of other-worldly dreams and voodoo culture. The dog image, in particular, is predominant. Are there specific precedents which inspire these representations?

The figures are similar to those found in the stories and myths of many different cultures. Angels, spirals, satyrs, flute players, crescent moons, and snakes are combined in a narrative that often reflects some particular situation going on in my own life. They are usually struggling with eachother or caught in a dance-like gesture. The forms and figures are almost always anthropomorphized and are meant to have a nocturnal, slightly mad, dreamlike hallucinatory presence. The dogs (Gods spelled backward) are usually two dimensional and are areas where I can develop a layered, crackle glaze to create surface richness and depth. They are in another dimension and represent observers or silent watchers of the struggles and misdeeds of the three dimensional world. When I use overlaid images it's because I want the content to appear as stratified as the surface. I want there to be a sense of fossilized meaning that has a layered depth. This could be a reflection of the global and instantaneous nature of world communications and computer capabilaities we share at this time. One of the last things I do is go back over the piece and whenever I see a form or texture that begins to look like something else I encourage it a little. I suppose you could see the tendency to animate nature as supernatural. Primitive man had a well-developed ability to see images and find meaning in nature. Clay is an ideal material to encourage this search for imagery--it's hard not to find faces and other forms in everything you make.

You cut into many of your forms, integrating the interior and exterior, letting the light in and the darkenss out. Why does much of this piercing occur in systematic, geometrical and contained shapes?

I began by trying to make the cuts into lines which defined the figures. But everything warped terribly in the kiln or fell apart as I made it. Since I was consciously trying to combine opposites I decided to limit the cuts to small, hard-edged slits which opposed the organic textures. I began seeing the cut areas as grinning mouths and I sometimes added cut-out eyes and noses. So they function in several different ways both formally and emotionally. I especially like the way light winks out through these cuts as one walks around the work.

The names of your pieces have African or Mayan overtones. How do you arrive at the titles of your work?

Some of the earlier work which incorporated images from "primitive" cultures with images from contemporary Western cultures had titles that referred to aspects of those cultures which were of particular interest to me. Sometimes a title like Toll Tech would be a comment on the difference between the directions in which Western and non-Western cultures have evolved. My current work is less topical and more improvisational. The vessels were left untitled because I felt that the title directs and limits the way we see them. I want them to accommodate numerous individual interpretations. The latest work in which the forms suggest the figure, vessel or landscape have titles taken from places I have climbed or would like to climb. These titles are as much a means of identification as they are significant to the idea of the piece.

You've talked about an "indefinable presence of pure creative energy" from which we are all trying to draw. How do you attempt to delve into this source and attain your purest creative potential?

Any attempt to describe my real feelings about this always sounds corny and falls pathetically short of the essence. It is something akin to Carl Jung's notion of the collective unconscious. I think that both trained and untrained artists acknowledge the power of the psyche in their work. The outsider tends to be less self conscious about this phenomenon than the trained artist but I feel that the best elements of any artist's work comes from this deeper level. I try to work in ways that allow for the most spontaneity because this seems to produce the best results. When my improvisational approach works, I feel that the figures are real, that they have a certain life of their own and that they find a way out through me.