Constant Albertson Associate Professor of Art University of Maine Constant.albertson@umit.maine.

edu Artist Statement:

I am interested in how visual narratives can provide unexpected insight into the interconnectedness of our group and individual identities. These objects are intended to be like notes on a refrigerator door, reminders to pay attention, that lifes thread is woven of ordinary things: shopping lists, childrens clutter and glass slivers of conversations. My sculptural practice draws on these fragments of memory and artifact, collections of cherished or disregarded things, to weave together a new story, for the purpose of uncovering fresh insights. Crucial to my art making is that I work almost exclusively in ceramics. All pieces are handbuilt. The concept of containment is as essential to my practice as is narrative. While my work does not function as vessels, there is the sense that something (literally or not) is held and protected, nested. The inside/outside spaces are as much a part of the meaning of the work as are the stories told, even if those interior spaces are not accessible. The most recent completed work, Storyteller, is a large scale narrative installation piece that tells the life story of my mother, Johnnie L. Albertson. Storyteller is about an American self-made woman, whose life spanned a fascinating time in American history. This piece is comprised of 13 individual ceramic sculptures organized in the form of an analog clock face, with 12 sculptures at the various time markers around the circumference of the circle, one sculpture at the center where the hands of the clock would be. In this installation, I explore identity development, which is sometimes consciously constructed, and how relationship of interpersonal relationships to that construction. I also explore not only the mother/chirelationship, but the peculiarities of memory and how our memories are encoded as family narratives, and how stories create reality, rather than reflect it. Before this, the Unhinged series explored how personal crises and global crises can seem to be paired, like different faces of the same coin or different parts of the same web. When the little fibers are disrupted that hold together our fragile sense of security, the easy and expected rhythms of domesticity, the magnitude of ecological disaster can seem like the same message only louder. A critical review of some of my work can be found:

March 2008

Maynard, C. (2008) Constant Albertson: Multi-tiered narratives. In Ceramics Art and Perception, International, 71, 84-86.