Jonathan Mess

When given the opportunity to reflect on my creative process, specifically thinking through making, I naturally turned to my creative partner. Beyond being my wife, Kate is an artist who knows me inside and out, who believes in me. I’m lucky to be able to dig into ideas with her. Rather than synthesizing our insights into an essay of my own, I thought it would be more authentic to share a distilled version of our conversation:

K: First of all, tell me about your creative process. What do you think are the core aspects of it?

J: Process and materiality. The physical material knowledge, and the exploration of working with clay . . . that’s what’s exciting and keeps driving my artwork. It takes years, decades, I’m still learning. That’s what attracts me to ceramics.

I’ve fired thousands of kilns and worked with thousands of pounds of clay, but still think, “I don’t know, I hope this works.” It’s always risky, especially working with reclaimed materials, because you’re never 100 percent sure what you have or what it’s going to do.

So, testing is very important. Testing, material prep, and setup are crucial to my process. That’s where I’m doing the heavy planning, choosing my palette, firing range, general forms. I like to set conditions and then let loose on a series of pieces at once.

K: So, you’re setting parameters for yourself to create these experimental, three-dimensional paintings, essentially. But you don’t necessarily know what they’ll look like in the end, because you don’t fully know how the materials will behave. Why do you think you work like that? Recently, you said to me, “Why am I always making work that’s on the edge of breaking?”

J: I think it’s a ceramic thing—but I’m extreme about it—you never know what you’re gonna get, the way I work with clay. I love pushing the envelope. I thrive on that discovery. I always want to be making something that’s never been done before.

K: A material explorer.

J: Definitely a material explorer. The joy of artmaking, for me, is the expression, the experimentation, and the desire to discover something new. I’m still on that quest to be 100 percent original.

And isn’t that life? That’s how I live, pushing—but now, my risk-taking has tamed in my daily life as an adult, a parent. But in my art, I can still push those extremes. The worst thing that could ever happen is that I could melt my work and ruin a kiln. We can fix that.

Anyone pushing the envelope toward any discovery has to go right to that edge where something could explode or break, right? So, I’m always on that tight rope where I could fall off and ruin it. It’s exciting for me. That’s where the discovery happens.

During setup, I’m methodically thinking, reflecting, and planning. I have a concept in mind, but when I’m geared up and the music’s playing, the slop is literally flying. It’s controlled chaos. That’s when I just make decisions and the confidence is there: “Yes! Yes, do that. Put it there. No, layer it up. Add more. Take away. Oh, I don’t want too much of that. I’m gonna put it—I’ll smear it away. Just build, build, build.” That’s just coming from second-nature . . . it is brain, but it’s more reactive, like soul. Then I step back to look and think. So, that free flow state just happens, I get moving, and the confidence is there, but sometimes it’s really hard to get that started.

K: So, it requires trust in the things you’ve already set up, all your hard-earned knowledge of how these materials might behave. Then you have all that confidence to flow.

The way you’ve been describing your making process, it feels so present. You’re in your body—you’re definitely thinking—but you’re more in your body and less in your mind?

J: Yeah, it’s like, react, react, react. I have to trust my instinct. That instinct was there from age fifteen, when I first found ceramics, to fifty, when I’m still discovering new things with clay.

There’s a spiritual moment in there, too, with something outside of me, like I’m connecting with . . . another layer . . . I allow and embrace that; it’s not religious, but it is a connection to something, to some sort of aura or level that gets me out of myself and gets me there.

I’m using my physical body to sludge through the mud and build up layers, like a caveman, you know? Somehow when the brain and body connect, there’s something spiritual there.

K: So are you saying it’s not just internal? It’s also external?

J: No. It’s internal. But I’m allowing myself to dance with the external.

I’m opening myself. There’s no hand pushing me, but I’m seeing more. I’m opening more, I get this euphoric feeling. Euphoria—my brain opens in different ways when I make art in this flow state.

K: That’s interesting, because you’re not saying that something else is making the decisions or guiding you. You’re making your own decisions and guiding yourself, but you’re more . . . open.

J: And I’m allowing—I’m playing with the tide. I’m letting the tide move me in and out. I’m riding the wave like a surfer, letting that flow of the river push me on like a whitewater kayaker. It’s not making me do something; I’m working with it. And in ceramics, there are external elements like time and temperature, and humidity, things are drying immediately as I’m working with them.

K: What happens when you push too far?

J: Well, making this way forces me to embrace and reconsider failure. It’s not as simple as, “Oh, I embrace happy accidents!” It’s painful. I still work through frustration, I still struggle with the moment the kiln opens. I’ll often have to process. But, I don’t just trash “failures.” They become part of my process again, I go back and keep working them. Traditionally, untraditionally—I glaze them again, or take a grinder to them and create new texture. Add and subtract. The work can keep developing—there’s not a single way or a single answer, everything is a possibility—until it’s got what I want: that balance, that rhythm, that contrast, a little hide, a little reveal.

I do step back sometimes and have those moments, where something’s like, “Ahhh! There it is. It’s done.” It’s . . . glowing. That instinct is my aesthetic. I want a lot of activity going on. It’s raw. I’m not a minimalist.

K: You’re making your ADD mind tangible.

J: Yes, in a sense, you’re seeing an archeological excavation of what happened in my brain during that session. It’s like jazz, improv jazz, you know? They’re playing a certain song, but there’s so much play within it. Each artwork, every time, it’s different, give and take, riffing, jamming . . .

K: Like when you play harmonica.

J: Yeah! Can’t read music, but I can play with anybody. I’m a feeler.

K: You’re in that same flow state. You’re not overthinking. You’re making instant decisions, responding to the other musician, trusting what comes out.

J: That’s right, one note leads me to the next.

 

 

Image at top: Jonathan Mess, Reclaim No. 47: Cross Sections, various reclaimed ceramic materials, left: 17 x 5 x 4 3/4 in., center: 16 1/2 x 5 x 4 in., right: 17 x 5 x 4 in. (photo: Kate Mess).