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Guest Potter: Yoko Sekino-Bove

This year, Yoko Sekino-bove will be a guest potter at Smicksburg Pottery.

Artist Statement:

"My porcelain work represents the integration of my collective emotions, curiosities, insights, and fancies in shapes of plants and animals. I have chosen plants and various creatures to deliver subtle, quiet gestures that carry the emotions. Their passive yet consistent interaction with other elements in nature is more like a whisper, and their short lives leave echoes that linger in the air long after they are gone.

The forms I developed are primarily for practical usage but also to challenge the users to exercise their imagination. Form and the surface design entwine to create a story, yet it is the function that establishes the identity. When a ceramic work is made, it is three-dimensional; it should be experienced from every angle, touched and used by human hands. I believe that functional ceramic work invites people to engage in an intimate relationship beyond that function through usage.

It is my hope that this work offers emotions, fancies, and insights to the viewers and reminds them that there are some rituals we subconsciously participate in our everyday lives with objects of daily use."

 

Biography:

Yoko Sekino-Bové was born in Osaka, Japan. She received BFA in graphic design from Musashino Art University in Tokyo, Japan, and worked as a commercial graphic designer in Los Angeles before her passion took her to study in Ceramics at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, OK, where she earned her MFA.

After serving as an apprentice at Rowantrees Pottery in Maine, then artist-in-residence at the Armory Art Center in Florida, Yoko settled as a studio artist in Washington, PA. Her work has been exhibited at both commercial and educational galleries nationally and internationally and included in museums and private collections.

Her ceramic works are featured on “500 cups”, “500 platters and chargers” and other craft books from Lark Books publication and a wide variety of periodicals including “American Crafts”, “Ceramics Monthly” and “The Clay Times” magazines.


Below are some samples of her work. Click on any photo to open a window for a larger view:
(note, depending on the browser, you may have to doubld click on the image in the new window to enlarge it.)

 

 

Title: Tropical Fruit teapot

Material: Porcelain clay with glazes

Year of production: 2010

Size: 280mm (h) x 170 mm (w) x 120 mm (d)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title: Fragile immortality

Material: Porcelain clay with glazes

Year of Production: 2009

Size: 320 mm (h) x 220 mm (w) x 130 mm (d)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title: Eucalyptus vase

Material: Porcelain clay with glazes

Year of production: 2009

Size: 350 mm (h) x 140 mm (w) x 140 mm (d)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title: Unsolved Mystery sauceboat

Material: Porcelain clay with glazes

Year of Production: 2010

Size: 140 mm (h) x 170 mm (w) x 130 mm (d) (set)

 

 

 

Title: Moon Phase

Materials: Porcelain clay with glazes, gold leaf

Year f Production: 2010

Various size: the tallest piece is about 360 mm (h)

 

 

 

 

Title: Gambler’s ewer

Materials: Porcelain clay with glazes, gold leaf

Year of production: 2010

Size: 125 mm (h) x 110 mm (w) x 80 mm (d)