Field Guide—Matt Wedel: Phenomenal Debris

Matt Wedel: Phenomenal Debris is organized by the Toledo Museum of Art

CURATED

BY Diane C. Wright, Senior Curator of Glass and Contemporary Craft

EXHIBITION DESIGN Sort Studio

EDITOR Paula Reich

GRAPHIC DESIGN Mark Yappueying SEASON SPONSOR

PRESENTING SPONSORS Susan and Tom Palmer ADDITIONAL SUPPORT

All works in this guide are on loan to the Toledo Museum of Art courtesy of L.A. Louver.

© 2022 Toledo Museum of Art

Spencer and Christy Stone & Family

MATT WEDEL PHENOMENAL DEBRIS

In a bright yellow studio nestled into nearly 10 acres of softly rolling hills in southeastern Ohio, Matt Wedel (born 1983) builds ideas out of clay.

With astonishing creativity and a self-sustaining supply of energy, he makes imaginative and surprising ceramic forms with dripping smears of color, scores of tiny petals, and massive, coiling limbs. Wedel’s focus shifts between figure and flora, representation and abstraction, monumental and intimate, object and drawing—dualities that have a supportive tension rather than being at odds with each other.

Arranged in thematic sections, this exhibition explores ideas of color, landscape, and abstraction in Wedel’s work. Each informs the other conceptually, physically, and formally. Wedel’s work demonstrates innovation and mastery with clay, but it is also, and most importantly, the cumulative effect of his life experiences and the engagement with what he describes as the act of being human. For Wedel, everything that goes into the making of the object is the work of art. “The thing that people get mixed up,” Wedel explains, “is that they think that my work is the object. The work that is happening is the act of understanding . . . [and] the object becomes a remnant in allowing that understanding to take place.

Matt Wedel cites his father, a potter, as the foundation of his focus on clay in his artmaking. “Similar to a potter,” Wedel says, “I am in love with the labor of making. It is exploration through form and the constant search for clarity about the world.”

After studying at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Wedel expanded his conceptual approach and physical understanding of clay at California State University, Long Beach. His early Rock series developed as a landscape for what would soon dominate his practice: the Flower Trees. Surrounded by the exquisite flora and fauna of the temperate Southern California climate, Wedel found that prehistoriclooking succulents, purple

canopies of jacarandas, and lemony yellow citrus began to have a formal influence on his work. He compulsively formed vast numbers of clay petals necessary to fill out the “trees” as they multiplied in number.

As the flower tree concept progressed, the work became larger and more elaborate. This increase in scale combined with the necessary repetition of movement resulted in debilitating hand fatigue. When he eventually returned to the form, a different method of making was required. The petals became softer, more elongated and overlapping. The visual impact appears as abstraction of the form.

Wedel uses few titles across his body of work, a practice that embodies the progression of a single idea and its evolution.

A Flower Tree is not one object but many, each exploring nuances of gesture, color, scale, and, eventually, abstraction.

Flower Tree

Gouache and pen on paper, 2009 14 × 11 IN.

Rock

Gouache and pen on paper, 2009 14 × 11 IN.

Flower

Flower

Flower

What about these works suggests a landscape?

Where do you imagine such a landscape to be?

What does it sound like?

What does it smell like? What is the weather?

The notion of Matt Wedel’s studio as garden is a metaphor for this exhibition, tying together plant themes, the impact of his environment on his work, and his interest in cycles of growth and renewal. Excavated directly from the earth, clay materially supports Wedel’s conceptual approach to his sculptural work. The process of healthy regeneration in the natural world is an apt comparison for understanding Wedel’s state of mind and the development of his work. With his home and studio surrounded by fields worked by young farmers engaged in permaculture and sustainable growing practices, Wedel recognizes a compelling alignment between this method of farming and his own focus on finding harmony with the natural

world and a global community. For both farmer and artist, these endeavors rely on a commitment to sustainability, while tapping into an inner creativity for problem-solving. External and internal aspects of Wedel’s daily existence intertwine, much like his abstracted flower petals that have grown into entangled masses: “My work is like harvesting from a garden that I planted,” he explains. “It is speaking to animals, holding sand, being splattered with sparks, preparing to die, figuring out why I struggle to make the bed every morning, all of the content between one sentence and the next, typing in the shower while trying not to get my phone wet, drinking fresh water, drifting off to sleep.”

In the Garden

22

Flower Tree

Earthenware, 2015

13 × 18 × 16 1/2 IN.

23

Flower Tree

Porcelain (whipped), 2018

6 1/2 × 9 1/2 × 11 IN.

the Garden

24

Flower Tree

Earthenware, 2015

17 × 23 × 22 1/2 IN.

25

Flower Tree

Porcelain (whipped), 2018

10 × 11 1/2 × 10 IN.

26 In

Flower Tree

Porcelain (whipped), 2019

Flower Tree

Porcelain, 2018 12 × 16 1/2 × 16 1/2 IN.

Flower Tree

Porcelain (whipped), 2018 7 × 8 × 12 IN.

Flower Tree

Porcelain (whipped), 2018 6 1/2 × 10 1/4 × 6 1/2 IN.

Flower Tree

Porcelain, 2013 25 3/4 × 13 × 16 IN.

Flower Tree

Porcelain (whipped), 2018

7 × 7 × 8 1/4 IN.

Flower Tree

Porcelain (whipped), 2018 7 × 9 × 11 IN.

Flower Tree

Earthenware, 2015 17 × 28 × 24 IN.

Flower Tree

Porcelain, 2018 12 × 15 1/2 × 19 IN.

Flower Tree

Porcelain, 2016 8 × 14 × 16 IN.

Flower Tree

2015

Think of a place that has been inspirational to you. What is it like?

How would you depict it in a work of art?

Use this page to draw or write a description of the place you’re thinking of.

In the Garden

Like much of Matt Wedel’s imagery, his figural works are an accumulation of various vantage points: an intersection of art history, imagination, representation, and abstraction. The titles Portrait, Head, and Figure are applied variously to two-dimensional stylized drawings and threedimensional sculptures. The heads demonstrate a surprising variety in form as well as clay type: earthenware, stoneware, or porcelain. Wedel extends his interest in color and abstraction of the figure to simple ceramic busts with streaks of pigmented porcelain “painted” across the surface. Swaths of color are found where facial features might be expected.

While exploring expression through various forms and mediums (including pastel on paper), Wedel’s figures, heads, and portraits also explore an emotional and psychological space. They invite a conversation about the artist’s state of mind as well as our own. As if acknowledging the importance of individuality, they open a door for us to imagine, ponder, and inquire in the studio alongside Wedel.

The figures, heads, and portraits are representations of consciousness and the contemplation of a range of emotions—including challenging ones like worry, dread, doubt, and fear, which fill this period of shared social anxiety and global

pandemic stress. This “head space”—yours and that expressed within this exhibition—is for questioning the construct of art history, our capacity for creation and destruction, and the impact culture has on who we become. This internal debate with oneself (in one’s mind/head) is critical to what Wedel refers to as “becoming”: a progression that is built on hard physical and mental work.

44

Portrait

45

Head Pot

Pastel on paper, 2018 24 × 19 1/8 IN.

Portrait

Pastel on paper, 2017 30 × 22 1/2 IN.

Portrait Pastel on paper, 2017 30 × 22 1/2 IN.

Head Stoneware with gold leaf, 2018 9 × 5 1/2 × 6 1/2 IN.

Head Stoneware, 2017 66 × 45 × 48 IN.

If the works in this section represent the artist starting a conversation with you, what would you say back to the artist?

Use this page to write or draw your thoughts.

“My work is what happens at every point of curiosity, in the learning of history, when I stare into the dark before I fall asleep, in the teaching of my children, in my fear about our failure to evolve fast enough, when something I have made has been destroyed, after a question is answered, when I hold someone’s hand, when I set time aside for another, when I sit in hot water, when I can allow myself to be.”

For Wedel, the pursuit of curiosity is a method of navigation inherent to life and artmaking. His use of color is a key aspect of this pursuit. In ceramics, color is a physical material, expressed by Wedel in multiple ways, including with glaze on the surface and even

mixed within the porcelain clay itself. Glaze, a glass-like substance, reacts to heat. In the kiln it moves and mixes unpredictably, responding to gravity and form, as seen in the Fruit Landscapes. In his series of small Flower Trees, Wedel paints with globs of pigmented porcelain. The color sits on top of clusters of petals like whipped meringue on a slice of pie. With this method Wedel is managing the effect rather than allowing the kiln to take control, using color as action, as gesture.

Wedel uses gouache (opaque watercolor) drawings as another means of exploring color. His images of potted plants reference both his mother, who is a gardener, and his father’s

Every Point of Curiosity

Every Point of Curiosity

Potted Plant

Gouache on paper, 2018

84 1/2 × 28 1/4 IN.

94 96

Potted Plant Gouache on paper, 2018 42 1/4 × 28 1/2 IN.

Potted Plant Gouache on paper, 2018 42 1/4 × 30 1/2 IN.

Potted Plant Gouache on paper, 2021 45 1/2 × 33 1/2 IN.

Potted Plant Gouache on paper, 2021 44 1/2 × 33 1/2 IN.

Fruit Landscape Porcelain, 2016 9 × 16 × 14 IN.

Fruit Landscape Porcelain, 2016 5 1/2 × 11 1/2 × 9 1/2 IN.

Flower Tree Earthenware, 2015 43 1/2 × 47 × 44 IN.

129

Potted Plant

Gouache on paper, 2021 30 × 22 1/2 IN.

130

Potted Plant

Gouache on paper, 2021 30 × 22 1/2 IN.

131

Potted Plant Gouache on paper, 2021 30 × 22 1/2 IN.

Potted Plant Gouache on paper, 2021 30 × 22 1/2 IN.

Think about your own life, your daily routine, the people you meet, and the places you visit.

What are these experiences like? How would you depict your own understanding of these human experiences in a work of art?

Use this page to imagine what your life experiences look like as a work of art, or perhaps as a poem.

Every Point of Curiosity

As it was for many, Wedel’s life and creative work was impacted severely by the global COVID-19 pandemic. His Mourning Benches, the most recent works in the exhibition, are about the need to pause. Glazed in a somber, monochromatic palette, the benches provide a place for rest, reflection, and healing. Low to the ground, they offer an easy respite. Unlike with most works in museum exhibitions, you are invited to touch, to sit. The benches offer a shared space, each with its own psychological topography—arches, mounds, and heads. Open-mouthed, the faces at the end of each bench read as surprised and shocked, mirroring our experiences of the pandemic, racial reckoning, and magnified political and cultural

divides. They evoke expressions of sorrow for what happens and what does not happen during times of extreme communal distress.

Wedel’s Lemon Tree serves as a counterpoint to the Mourning Benches. With its healthy, ripe fruit, the tree is life affirming and a representation of the constant ability we have for transformation and rejuvenation. It represents a new morning after mourning—the bright yellow fruit emulating the lemon-yellow studio where Wedel works, starting over each day as he makes his ideas in clay.

We invite you to sit on the Mourning Benches.

Mourning & Morning

Can art connect people, even in a time of much division? Sit on a bench; take a moment to pause and think about what experiences connect us with others. Breathe and rest.

Ceramics is the term used for objects made from clay after they have been fired in a kiln. Matt Wedel works with three basic types of clay, called clay bodies, to make his ceramic sculptures. Each has specific characteristics.

CLAY BODIES

Earthenware and

terracotta are the oldest clay bodies (ancient Greek vases, for example, are made of terracotta). It is a porous clay that is an earthy red or brown color due to the presence of iron. It is lowfiring, meaning it hardens in a kiln at a relatively low temperature (about 1600–1945° F).

Stoneware is coarse-grained and non-porous and is more durable than earthenware after firing in a kiln. This clay is usually gray in color and is often used for functional vessels. It can be mid-firing (requires temperatures of about 2100–2200° F in the kiln) or highfiring (about 2280–2345° F).

Porcelain is a non-porous clay body prized for its mineral purity, which results in it being nearly white. Chinese potters perfected porcelain in the Tang Dynasty (618–907). It is high-firing (matures in a kiln at about 2280–2345° F) and is the strongest of the three main clay bodies.

IN MATT WEDEL’S STUDIO

Incredibly prolific, Matt Wedel nevertheless works without studio assistants. Alone, he moves his sometimes tremendously large, hand-built sculptures that can reach up to 16 feet in height and weigh more than 2,000 pounds by slowly pushing or pulling the objects with straps and dollies or raising them with hoists to get them where they need to be. He uses a wheeled platform on tracks to move the largest objects in and out of the kiln in his bright yellow studio in rural southeast Ohio.

He also mixes his own glazes— vitreous, or glass-like, pigment that hardens and fuses to the ceramic form when it is fired in a kiln. As Wedel explains, “I love color and the phenomenon of ceramic and glass color. I am also a painter with this color and use it to embody an atmosphere of emotion...

“Throwing [clay forms] with your hands is not just about how to translate something perfectly. There is something in your breath that takes place—a kind of body knowledge akin to laying a child down to sleep or cradling a wounded animal.

You have to be in this space of openness and responsiveness that is pre-intellectual. It is not something that you can understand by reading a book. For me, being in that space of openness was the pursuit.”

Exhibition Catalogue Matt Wedel: Phenomenal Debris

$45.00

Preorder now in The Museum Store. Available March 2023.

Hardcover

8 1/5 × 10 ¼ IN.

ISBN: 978-0-935172-63-8

Published by the Toledo Museum of Art. © 2023 Toledo Museum of Art.

The accompanying catalogue for Ohio-based artist Matt Wedel’s exhibition at the Toledo Museum of Art, his first at a major museum, this generously illustrated book explores the astonishing energy that Wedel has brought to the field of contemporary ceramic sculpture. A prolific maker, he regularly pivots between stoneware, earthenware, and porcelain, exploring the expressiveness of material and color. Matt Wedel: Phenomenal Debris investigates the development and cross-pollination of figuration and landscape in Wedel’s ceramic sculptures, as well as his own psychology and how it transforms both his work and the way he perceives his role as artist, father, and global citizen.

Diane C. Wright with contributions by Halona Norton-Westbrook, Tony Marsh, and Matt Wedel.