For Ben S. ’24, getting into pottery was a happy accident. After taking music classes throughout middle school, he decided on a whim to sign up for Introduction to Ceramics and Sculpture in his freshman year. “I signed up for a random art elective, and it ended up being something I really love,” he explains: “It was just luck at first, but I ended up taking it for four years.”
That initial stroke of luck soon grew into a genuine passion for ceramics: After years of practice, along with recent inspiration from a trip to the Mediterranean, Ben’s new series of sculptures fusing Greek and Roman architecture with traditional pottery is now on display at Saltstone Ceramics, a Seattle-based pottery studio.
The series on display draws from a central idea of miniature cities living inside – and growing outside of – vases. “It’s an idea I’ve been developing for a while,” notes Ben. Beginning in early sophomore year, he experimented with different styles, glazes, and structures, drawing inspiration from everything from the villages of Cinque Terre to Greek mythology. He describes a sort of breakthrough with the piece Atlas Urbis, a sculpture of a man with a village rising out of his back: “That was the big one. It took probably a month and a half of just building, and that kind of refined the style.”
He credits Lakeside’s ceramics program with providing the necessary supplies for him to push the envelope when it comes to creating: “The amount of access we have … clay 3D printers, an insane array of glazes, the whole woodshop … I haven’t run into a project where materials have been an issue. [The program] allows almost infinite space for your ideas.” Ben notes that it often simply comes down to experience and skill, two things that can both be improved with time.
To Ben, the most important thing to remember as an artist is to not be afraid of taking risks: “When I started [Atlas Urbis], I knew it was going to be really hard,” he recalls. The size of the structure meant that it needed to be built fully hollow, and getting the details down while making sure the piece didn’t blow up in the kiln posed a significant challenge. Though Ben admits that there are things he could have improved on that particular piece, he ended up with a finished product that he can be proud of. “If you have an ambitious idea, try to make it,” he says. “You’ll do a lot better than you think you can.”
