Hannah Cupp
Seagrove, North Carolina
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Bio
Hannah Cupp grew up enjoying crafting and exploring the woods around her house in northern Georgia. When working toward her BFA from Clemson University, she fell in love with clay and the process of creating art that brings people joy when used in day-to-day life. Following college, Hannah moved on to be a resident at StarWorks as well as the North Carolina Pottery Center. She currently works with potters in Seagrove, NC learning the trade while also working in production pottery to hone her skills throwing on the wheel. Having a background in drawing and a passion for the ceramic process, she found a way to focus these two mediums into a single practice. Hannah creates functional forms decorated with gestural and delicate line drawings intending to have a contrast between the delicate lines and the harsher volatile surface the atmosphere from wood firing creates.
Artist Statement
Memory is a fickle thing, forever holding place in your mind but never reliable in every detail. Growing up in a region in the process of becoming more industrialized, I am familiar with seeing forests and fields being bulldozed down to be replaced by outlet malls. There is always a hint of what used to be, with small plants trying to grow through the concrete or the remnants of the trees peeking from behind the buildings. I have nostalgia for what was there, but if asked to describe or draw the forest that used to be, it would not be close to accurate to the original scenery. I would draw what I associate with greenery, not leaves of specific shapes but what is iconography of trees, bushes, and fields. Seeing the plants and trees in front of me is the only time when I can identify what used to be.
I create functional forms covered with gestural and delicate lines intending to have a contrast between the delicate decorations and the harsher volatile surface the atmosphere from wood firing creates. When creating pottery, I use abstracted imagery of flora in the background juxtaposed with more concrete or detailed recognizable plants in the forefront. The third layer of surfacing comes in during woodfire with wood ash and color variations affecting the images, adding the aspect of warped and sometimes missing memory of the greenery around us. In relation to obscuring memory and drawing, gestural drawings of leaves become abstracted and there are small wood ash-covered areas within the image that questions what used to be there and what is now in its place. I use functional ware as a meditative device; having familiar interactions with the object and its decorated surface.