For this edition of Fort Visits (for Fort Makers), we sit down with artist Keith Simpson, a US based artist / designer whose work investigates traditional craft processes and the integration of new methods with industrial/emerging technologies. Designing systems of making. Keith has a background in the rapid prototyping industry and studied ceramic art at the Kansas City Art Institute and The Ohio State University. Keith is known as an early practitioner of clay 3d printing and his practice is divided between design and production of ceramic wares with his bespoke process and sculptural art practice.
Q: You are a bit of a ceramic wizard. What drew your attention to working with clay originally?
A: We barely worked with clay in high school, and my teacher blew everything up in the kiln, so I started to make raw clay pieces and finish them with oil paint- there’s actually a whole body of work there that I may go back to at some point. In my early 20s I took some ceramics classes in Spokane with an artist named Lee Ayars and it really started to click and I became attached to ceramics - I just fell in love with the idea of giving it form and transmuting materials. It was there that I really started to see possibilities, with ceramics, in an expansive sense.
Q: Your glazes are wildly colorful and experimental. Do you have a favorite?
A: I don’t really have a favorite - and if I did, these days, I’d be pairing it with something that I find more challenging. Lately, I’m doing a lot more with layering and varying firing temperature. As I’ve developed more understanding and ability to control results, I’m starting to think about what might have been lost in the process, so I’m strategically loosening up, and revisiting some of that wonder. Trusting my gut more and seeking out uncertainty with the surfaces.
Q: You’ve spent a lot of time firing ceramics, are the kiln gods real?
A: Of course! We’ve learned so much and to a great extent we can control ceramics - and in some cases that’s necessary, but there is still this sense of alchemy and maybe magical transformation of material that can be found. I do believe in magic. The kiln gods however, are not causing your thick pots to crack or explode. There are more mundane sets of forces at work in that case…
Q: How did you realize you wanted to be an artist?
A: I’ve always just been an artist - it is how I’ve made sense of the world as long as I can remember, and I’ve always carved out space to reflect and practice. It’s the only thing that makes sense to me and I’ve given up trying to understand why a lot of folks would rather talk about football.
Q: Some of your sculptures remind us of grottos. What inspired this work?
A: They emerged from a process. They really did just come into being. I set up a way of drafting and coding for clay 3D printers and started by making low and wide forms, basins, then started to make the walls taller and add perforations. As the basins became more architectural, the structural limitations dictated the forms. I’m in communion with it, of course, but there are good reasons to curve walls, and there are reasons that castle windows are vaulted. These forms have a lot to do with substance and gravity.
Q: Some of your recent 3D printed work is about portals? Tell us more about this series.
A: Absolutely. It's built into the same body of work that the Grottos come from. There is a collection of ideas that fall structurally into the work. The work starts through the screen of a computer, and in that space it is manifest as code, completely immaterial, and it is through a series of traversals between worlds that the work becomes physical. The physical forms begin with the basins, as portals to be peered down into, as tidepools, or geo-thermal mud pits - where strange new things emerge. As the pieces grow in height and develop architecturally, more symbols of traversal take shape; portals as windows, doorways, and bridges.
Q: You’ve also been whittling recently. Does this reductive process of making something connect you to a different creative side of yourself?
A: Sure. I have a son who is turning 7 soon, and he’s so creative. He loves to be outside at the beach collecting stones or walking through the forest. Ceramics has been a great gateway for me to understand the natural world and how we can sit in it. Whittling is another great gateway to learning and building an intentional relationship with the natural world. It’s also a great communal activity. I do enjoy the process from a technical standpoint - it’s a very responsive practice, where every move needs to take the grain of the wood into account, but I really embrace it as a foundational skill that builds understanding and confidence, but also as a kind of resistance to capitalism. I love that it's become a first instinct for me, before buying some small thing off the internet; you might be surprised how often a carved piece of found wood will resolve some small problem.
Q: Your Instagram handle is
‘Early American Robot Pottery’.
How did this name come about and what drew you to working with ceramic 3D printers?
A: Early American Pottery is a real thing - it’s often these salt fired crocks or jugs with painterly cobalt decoration that would have been incredibly practical in daily colonial life. I changed my IG profile name to “Early American Robot Pottery” maybe 10 years ago, kinda as a joke, but I liked that it labeled what I was doing and looked forward from that point, imagining more ceramic artists embracing these tools at the center of their practice, and what that landscape of makers might look like.
Q: You have taught ceramics and sculpture to many people and a variety of age groups. What do you enjoy most about teaching?
A: You really do get the opportunity to learn from so many different perspectives what's important to students about their artwork. Some of the kids really just enjoy the process of having their hands busy and spending time with their friends in a more low stakes environment than their academics, but folded in there are some kids that are thinking very deeply and processing their world through their art. And that is pretty magical.
Q: What are you inspired by now?
A: Everything, thank goodness! I was just in Cape May NJ in March, and everything was closed, the beaches were completely empty, we walked out for a mile past weathered and broken volley ball nets to get to the shoreline at Wildwood. It was windy, cold and smelled terrible. But there were amazing patterns in the sand, where sheets of black anaerobic bacteria and salt had hardened layers alternately, and the wind etched through them in really remarkable ways. I really don’t need to travel that far to be inspired, I’m often inspired by things I see very close to home.
Q: If you could be a fly on the wall and see any art work being made, who would you visit?
A: The first artist that comes to mind is Kathy Butterly, maybe because I was just looking at her work the other day. I’m always working in series and some are longer lived than others. I imagine I’ll circle back to many of them in time. She seems to have such a persistent vision. I would really like to just watch her work and see how she gets there.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I am gearing up for a productive summer in my own studio. I do have a couple of bodies of work brewing and reaching out to get some gallerists to visit the studio so that they can find a home. Teaching really is on the front burner right now, as I’m prepping for a workshop I’m teaching at Haystack School of Craft this June, but at the moment my top priority is helping my Middle School students get ready for their exhibition. I’m doing a lot of things at the school right now that require attention and organization… I’m leading a Centennial Quilt project and also working on firing up some old letterpress equipment. Lotsa fun stuff!
