Fired Up: A Contemporary Ceramics Survey
Creative Growth
355 24th St, Oakland
Through Aug. 30, 2025
Clay has been an important part of my personal and artistic identity for about as long as I can recall fashioning anything. Though I’m unsure how our relationship began, I do know that it carried me from kindergarten teacher’s home studio (guiding my less handsy mother on the wheel) to self-styled high-school therapy, through to the production of pieces to hold the baked goods and salads I served. It has been years since we’ve worked together (arthritis is a bitch!), but still I can’t bring myself to toss old unglazed pieces or give up hope that we will reunite some day soon in a filthy embrace.
Soaking in the practices, polish, and play behind ceramic works of those around has also always brought immense pleasure. So,when Creative Growth announced their latest exhibit would be one that “brings together a bold and joyful survey of ceramic works,” featuring “both recent and historic works, with contributions from longtime studio artists and emerging voices alike,” I scooted myself over to their lovely gallery space as soon as I was able.
Scenes from the front windows. Works by Dan Hamilton (L), and Nathaniel Jackson (R).
Curated and displayed to mirror themes between the wide array of artists and their approaches, and bookended by the two large front window displays by Dan Hamilton (practicing at CG since 1975) and Nathaniel Jackson (since 2014), Fired Up offers a bit of something for every viewer — provided they like a touch, or a big brush full—of color.
With tiny figurines, whimsical bowls and spoons in eye-popping hues and funky textures, and a good number of faces, both human and other, the selection of works is an overload of fun in miniature and highly personalized pieces.
Once inside, Lulu Sotelo’s delightful figures are there to greet.
With eyes and lips and brows bulging, bodies tubular, and an effect landing somewhere between Gumby, car wash inflatable dancer, muppet, and Sesame Street, they feel homey and familiar, a childhood relic with a hardened edge and good sense of humor.
The medium’s “immediate, tactile, and endlessly adaptable…qualities…make it a favorite among artists,” maintaining a “vibrancy and experimentation.” This joy and willingness for experimentation is on full display. From flat-slab paintings to intricate and historically-inspired masks, each artist lent a lightness, a levity to the earthly material.
Anchoring the show from the back wall, Cedric Johnson’s works offered further intricacies and elevation. Johnson, whose works have been recognized and embraced by the wider art world, conveys emotion and movement through color and deeply human portraits despite their contortions and disfigurement. I found Untitled, CJ 197, a nearly two-foot tall vase, with its layered ropes of colors and textures, a tree stump of open-sore eyes and dots of disease, reminiscent of a yarn-bombed hydrant, or coogi sweater, a reworked and seven-times-stitched tapestry of sentimental fabrics and threads in ceramic form. His painterly touch extended to this hardened medium, a literally multifaceted look at how human touch affects its surroundings.
Stop in to lose yourself in the small, to find a friend in the hardened muddy makes of these prolific artists.
Creative Growth Gallery is open Wednesdays - Saturdays, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
