safe | passage
Before I committed to pottery, I made sculpture too. The forms have changed, but the vision is the same. Through time, grief, and motherhood, some questions have settled with ease. Others have receded, and I’ve grown more comfortable letting the mystery be.
My MFA thesis exhibition, Safe | Passage (Ohio State University, 2017, Columbus OH) began with a collection of handmade afghans, overlooked and heavy with other women’s labor. I spent graduate school translating that weight into material: thousands of knotted thimbles, a braid of hair, thread and stitches. I was asking what care looks like when it is slow, repetitive, and mostly unseen.
I will always be committed to a life of making that values both labor and tenderness. Though the work has moved from the gallery to the table, it is in many ways the same.
Made under my former name, Allison Craver.
Surrendered / Afghan blankets, porcelain, wallpaper paste, army cot.
On the Mend / Clay, cotton batting, thread, borax crystals.
Skin & Stones / Terra cotta, ultracal, afghan squares, ocean water, salt.
10,962 / Porcelain, waxed thread, chair.
Basin / Synthetic hair, ultracal, cotton batting, thread, casters.
