Carrie M. Nelson

Our lives are built on many different structures, some ridged and unchanging, yet others fluid and malleable. I am exploring the mundane and commonplace structures in our lives, either self constructed or naturally occurring, that conflict with our human desire to break from conformity.

I enjoy and envy the effortless success of nature's textures and colors. To replicate such worn and weathered displays found in a junk yard seems unobtainable, I can only hope to enhance and add the mere touch of the human hand to an already existing piece of art.

My ceramic sculptures are inspired by biological life forms mixed with fantasy. I include aspects of biological forms referencing the microscopic and also larger terrestrial and aquatic creatures. I use texture and color to evoke the audience. My pieces are usually made in multiples reflecting my need for many parts to make a coherent whole.

I am not only exploring the natural landscape, but the man-made one, a relationship between the forms that have always existed, and the forms newly constructed by man.

The work I am making now deals with creating solutions to communication problems I had as a child. The pieces reflect the physical discomfort I placed on myself for not being able so socialize adequately, and are awkward and uncomfortable, much like I was in my youth.

I’m interested in the struggles that modern children encounter as they mature. A fascination with the moments leading up to, during, and after the loss of such intimate characteristics of youth as ignorance and innocence, is what drives my work.

My current paintings celebrate the resilience of weeds and our weedy human species.

When I paint or draw I set the stage for the removal of ego, which is the illusory self, the fearful self, the self all about form, and in doing so I "get out of my own way" making room for the experience of my realizing my Oneness with Source.