Interview with Garth Johnson

By: SuperNaturale

Garth Johnson is an unorthodox ceramicist, part-time teacher, dandy, and proprietor of the beloved blog Extreme Craft. He gave us the skinny on his work, his geeky taste in music, and his romantic nature. Garth, you are so dreamy.

When I first looked at your work with its totally eccentric aesthetic, I thought, “Where in the Samhain is this guy from?” Can you speak to this?
Perhaps some readers can identify with being in love with a medium where they hate 99% of the work out there. I've always felt an incredible attraction to ceramic art, but so much of the stuff out there is unspeakably vile. I try to make work that comes from an unusual place. I feel like the world has seen enough purple travel mugs, so I feel pressured to make something different. I have a love for ceramic forms that have been overlooked by potters and ceramic artists, chiefly fussy 18th and 19th century porcelain. I am also a hopeless pop culture junkie. I've always felt comfortable mashing up fleeting pop culture moments with timeless antiques.



I know you've spent a lot of time honing your craft, and choosing the medium you create in. Can you speak to why you chose ceramics? Was it the first medium you started working with? Or did you try several others before deciding to get your MFA at Alfred?
I tried ceramics in high school, and I hated it with a vengeance. In my tiny high school, the art teacher would set aside a few months during the school year for ceramics. She would mix together clay from a powder, letting it ferment in a big bucket until it smelled as brown as it looked. We had a tiny potter's wheel that was kept on a tabletop. The teacher didn't really know how to throw a pot, but we were encouraged to spend hour after hour making little lumpy paperweights on that wheel.

We didn't really have the right materials in high school, so everything was always cracking, exploding, or melting down. It's no surprise that when I got to art school, I saved ceramics until the very last possible moment. When I started ceramic classes at a University level, I was shocked to find that I loved clay--particularly throwing on the potter's wheel. There was a sense of danger attached to throwing pots that I liked, riding the fine line between masterpiece and mush pile at any moment. Shortly thereafter, I started learning about ways to combine illustration with pottery, and my fate was sealed.

In grad school, I started combining computer design with ceramics. I didn't really make a single pot in grad school. I was just working on blank porcelain plates and altered collector’s plates. The computer provided an exciting contrast to the millennia of handwork that came before it.



In terms of process, I wonder, do you start with a concept and then begin working with materials or is it more open ended than that?
I have a very Jekyll and Hyde relationship with creativity. I can pick up an existing collector’s plate like one from Norman Rockwell and improvise with it. Altered plates are my funny, dreamy, creative outlet where I can really play with humor, images, and ideas. I feel much more constrained when I start a body of work. I'm addicted to research, and love to spend months (or years) kicking the ideas around. By the time I get around to making the work, I feel like it is fully formed. The joy (and curse) of working in ceramics is that there is always room for serendipity.

What are you working on right now?
For the past few years, I've been riffing on 18th and 19th century porcelain. The work has gotten more and more stealth. I've been trying to use the finest porcelains, china paints, gold, and platinum to impart luxury. I'm working on a series of porcelain urns that will really make viewers look twice. At first glance, they appear to be antique urns, but on closer inspection, my usual themes and treatments begin to emerge.





What have you been looking at recently that is really inspirational for you?
I started a weblog (www.extremecraft.com) a while back that puts me in the enviable position of having an army of people suggesting things for me to look at. I'm constantly amazed by what craft artists can accomplish. In particular, fiber artists have been regularly dropping my jaw. I'm very inspired by crafty art with solid theoretical underpinning: Stephanie Syjuco's "Counterfeit Crochet" project, Kate Bingaman's credit card drawings on obsessiveconsumption.com. Also (not because she'll hit me over the head with a frying pan if I don't mention it) my fiancée, Claire Joyce, is the Rembrandt of glitter painting. I've watched her work for years now, and I still can't figure it out.

What's on your 8-track?
I love music and obsess over it like baseball fans obsess over stats, but I listen to far more Public Radio and podcasts at the moment. The Ricky Gervais podcast featuring Karl Pilkington needs to be preserved in amber for future generations. I'm a huge fan of the 80's-90's (unfashionable) English group CUD, who recently reformed. I'm constantly kicking myself that I haven't been able to go see them live. I'm not ashamed to count myself among the obsessive thirty-somethings on their email discussion group. Sigh. I feel old, though.

Is it true you proposed to your finance on Santa's lap?
I'm a sneaky bitch. When I knew Claire was the one for me, I decided to propose on one knee....not just any knee, but SANTA'S. It didn't take much subliminal suggestion for me to get her excited about having her picture taken with Santa. I let her plan the whole day...I think we ran some errands, went to a movie with one of her friends, then hung out at the mall for a while waiting for Santa.

While she was in the bathroom, I ran down to Santa's workshop and told the elf who was taking the picture that I was proposing, so she knew to snap a few extra photos. Santa (not to mention Claire) didn't know the proposal was coming. I can't decide who is more shocked in the picture.

After she said yes, all of the ladies rushed out of the food court restaurants in their Orange Julius hats and uniforms to congratulate her and take a look at the ring. It was a big day. You can find the photographic evidence on Extreme Craft in the December 2005 archive.

See Also

Dyed Fungus: a Tutorial
Quick Sketch
The Envelope Please