The light that seeps through
- Leah uses hand building techniques to create porcelain vessels
- She strips away colour to celebrate texture and translucency
- Her work has been exhibited throughout the USA and internationally
In her Philadelphia studio, Leah Kaplan pushes the boundaries of vessel design by coaxing porcelain into imitating the drape and texture of fabric, lace and basketry. Working with artisans for a non-profit organisation spurred Leah’s love for cultural textile and fibre traditions, including Japanese boro, ikat, shibori and African and South American basketry. “It all really inspires me,” she says. By stretching the porcelain clay to its thinnest, Leah allows light to play a role: illuminating textures, permeating between coils and making the objects glow. She sometimes uses clear glaze on her hand built pieces, but adds no additional colour, focusing on the form and texture. “My work is so much about materiality and about revealing what porcelain can and cannot do,” Leah says.
Interview
- How has your ceramic work evolved?
- In the mid-1980s, I took a ceramics class in New York City and fell in love with it. I started working with coloured clays in the Japanese nerikomi technique. Today, I work with white and play with texture and form. I stripped down my practice to its most elemental.
- How would you describe your porcelain pieces?
- They are sculptural objects and vessels, although sometimes they have no bases. I think of a vessel as having an interior space, like a cavity, so it offers two surfaces I can play with simultaneously. Sometimes I put them on their sides, so viewers can look through them.
- What distinguishes your practice?
- I love that my pieces create material confusion. My vessels often appear soft and flowy, but they are in fact incredibly solid and hard. I want people to touch the vessels and circle around them, as their appearance varies from different angles.
- What role do serendipity and intention play in your work?
- There is always a push and pull between serendipity and intention. When trying new techniques, a piece might sometimes go off the rails. This is how I discover unexpected results. It could be a surprising surface in an otherwise failed piece, which might inspire my next creation.
Leah Kaplan is an expert artisan: she began her career in 1989
Works
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Leah Kaplan
