I understand pottery as being able to unite people together at the table. I want my pots to provoke conversation over meals. Therefore, allowing people to understand how they relate to one another and support each other. Pottery allows me to reflect upon my past as I contemplate my values for the future.  I make pots holding functional qualities-plates, vases, cups and teapots. However, I challenge myself and my audience to look beyond function and use the medium to address artistic concepts including metaphor, symbol, perception and relationships.

The dinner table presents tremendous potential as an installation environment. This notion offers an arena for me to captivate an audience. My pots are influenced by architecture that reflects qualities of efficient quiet strength.  Atmospheric firing enhances the linear quality of my work. I am engaged in a continual dialogue that questions and examines my awareness in the environment which I exist.   Moving outside the atmosphere of what is familiar challenges my perspective on life .

I am committed to redefine and manipulate the theater of my work. Through the engagement and creation of pottery I look to raise more questions about my life and existence rather than finding answers. I am interested in watching my work grow in response to the experience of time.  As I continue to make pottery I am excited by the potential it has to define and alter the course of my existance.

Benjamin Charles Maier 1/1/07