"I draw influence
from many different traditions, from prehistoric Woodland-period pots found
in the Southeastern U.S., to Okayama Japanese styles, and to Abstract
Expressionism."
Pottery and ceramic art were not AJ Collins'
first craft. He grew up in North Carolina. After graduating from
Appalachian State University, he moved to California to complete his MFA in
Poetry, while at the same time teaching contemporary poetry and writing at
UC-Irvine. In the summer of 2005, AJ moved to Farmington, Maine, to
take up a position as an assistant professor in the English Department at
the University of Maine,
Farmington.
Having
learned woodworking, soldering, and welding while helping with his father's
commercial refrigeration business, in college he initially began making
functional chair sculptures with metals and wood. His involvement with
ceramic art is circuitous, and has been propelled as much by a hyper-driven
desire to make with his hands as it has by his view of pottery as a primal
function of civilization. Through pottery and ceramic art, AJ bridges
prehistorical human inclinations with good modern technology.
This
exceptionally talented young artist, truly embodies the sentiments of the
quote by Collette Brichant found on our home page: "In today's world
of mass production, there remain those men and women who work with their
hands according to ancient techniques...They give themselves to their craft
by vocation, less for material gain than for the esthetic order they find
there.
AJ Collins
comments, "my present work in three-dimensional visual forms began when I
found common threads
between the visual and written arts, especially poetry. The practices of
making earthenware vessels and the oral tradition of poetry predate modern
civilization, thus their practice today binds us with a primal, essential
human behavior and self-expression that is rare or fleeting in today's
boisterous and posturing society.
A pivotal
element of these practices is their function, both in the making and in the
made thing. The making of both teaches concentration, patience, and
cultivates skill. The made thing becomes external to the artist and is used
by others, either by practical application of it (using the bowl to eat
from, using the poem to learn), or by appreciation for the process of making
that the artist underwent. Hopefully we've all been involved in some step of
this process; to make and to use is to be essentially human."
Currently, AJ is
working a lot with the Woodland technique. "Woodland pots are,
generally, prehistoric pots from what is now Maryland and Virginia that were
flat-bottomed and slumped due to their still-developing technology--I'm
trying to emulate that style with modern technology by using the forms I
carve, particularly for the deeper plates."
In the spirit of
these sentiments, AJ has learned and continues to make bold progress with
his art by consistently working, absorbing as much as he can from both the
past and current evolving traditions of ceramic art.
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AJ
Collins - Functional Ceramic Artist
Having
learned woodworking, soldering, and welding while helping with his father's
commercial refrigeration business, in college he initially began making
functional chair sculptures with metals and wood. His involvement with
ceramic art is circuitous, and has been propelled as much by a hyper-driven
desire to make with his hands as it has by his view of pottery as a primal
function of civilization. Through pottery and ceramic art, AJ bridges
prehistorical human inclinations with good modern technology.
between the visual and written arts, especially poetry. The practices of
making earthenware vessels and the oral tradition of poetry predate modern
civilization, thus their practice today binds us with a primal, essential
human behavior and self-expression that is rare or fleeting in today's
boisterous and posturing society. 
