I grew up in the ’50s in Long Beach, California, with its busy commercial harbor and, a little further inland, the streets and freeways of L.A.’s newly forming car culture. Since those early days of my childhood I’ve had a fascination with boats and cars, and I’m now exploring what happens to them as they decay. I see in them the energy that emanates from discarded dreams … those old cars forgotten in garages or pieces of old boats rotting in the harbor or on the back lot of a boatyard, one step away from the junkyard or dismantler.
I’m always looking for a way to make off-beat what may seem at first glance mundane subject matter. I work in a gestural manner, almost throwing each object together. The lines of my pieces aren’t straight and clay oozes out of joints. I love rough edges, ragged textures against smooth, flakes of clay clinging to the work. I want my material to retain its clayness. I also work very loosely with underglazes and cold finishes, brushing on the finish with wide brushes in thin washes, drawing on my background in watercolor.
Through form, texture and finish I give voice to a simple part of our everyday existence.
Jon Gariepy