Chelsea McMaster
Chelsea McMaster
Chelsea McMaster grew up in Antigua, before heading to the U.S. to complete her schooling, which culminated in an MFA in Ceramics at Alfred University, New York.
Her terra sigillata vessels—a reddish-brown clayey earth found on the Aegean island of Lemnos—began as representations of the individuals that McMaster was familiar with; family, friends, or those the artist would turn to in moments of enlightenment.
As McMaster digs deeper into the role of women as the gatekeepers and purveyors of culture, her vessels have taken on an increasingly anonymous position.
‘I watched my grandmother bake cakes throughout my childhood. She never used a recipe,’ recalls Chelsea McMaster. ‘To this day I still bake like that.’
Intangible heritage—folklore, traditions, customs and language—may often defy oral communication. Rather, it may be an individual quirk in a culinary process that could lead to a family ritual, transferring down generations until it becomes written in the histories of a culture’s everyday lives.
Unlike baking, ceramics were little discussed around McMaster’s childhood kitchen table. Yet as the artist formed the aesthetics and concepts of her ceramic practice, she unearthed stories from her parents, or read histories of women involved in Afro-Caribbean pottery practices rolling the red clay of her country into low-fired vessels.
Like the Qing dynasty’s Imperial Guard flanking the entrances of the Forbidden City in Beijing, or The Great Sphinx guarding the Pyramids of Giza, McMaster’s guardians serve to greet, to protect, and stand as bastions for her conceptual space.
‘I watched my grandmother bake cakes throughout my childhood. She never used a recipe,’ recalls Chelsea McMaster. ‘To this day I still bake like that.’
Intangible heritage—folklore, traditions, customs and language—may often defy oral communication. Rather, it may be an individual quirk in a culinary process that could lead to a family ritual, transferring down generations until it becomes written in the histories of a culture’s everyday lives.
Unlike baking, ceramics were little discussed around McMaster’s childhood kitchen table. Yet as the artist formed the aesthetics and concepts of her ceramic practice, she unearthed stories from her parents, or read histories of women involved in Afro-Caribbean pottery practices rolling the red clay of her country into low-fired vessels.
Like the Qing dynasty’s Imperial Guard flanking the entrances of the Forbidden City in Beijing, or The Great Sphinx guarding the Pyramids of Giza, McMaster’s guardians serve to greet, to protect, and stand as bastions for her conceptual space.