Exhibition Catalogue
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Grounded In Gold
Artist Statement
47 years in the studio and counting… the first 30, joyously spent anchored by function. Eventually stories wanted to be told that pots couldn’t tell. Along the way, story-telling (through figurative sculpture) yielded to questions.
The questions being asked here: Am I one? If so, what’s with the discourse in my head with opposing views? And who is the ‘me’ reporting the experience? So, one vessel splits into 2 or 3 and the apparently separate parts interact.
Living with these questions over the past few years, the work that came through for Grounded in Gold, shifted from figurative to non-representational then back to the figure. The non-representational forms distill while the representational ones elaborate.
Ultimately the process of making the work showed me an alternate path to the endless Self-Improvement-Project. I came to see through process, that it mattered less whether I maintained presence than that I understood that the part of me that is Divine never leaves. It’s there whether I’m aware of it or not. As a human being, I’m always Grounded in Gold and that this is true of every person.
Unity
2025
Custom red clay, slip palette and satin glaze formulated by artist, commercial underglaze, and 23 carat gold luster
27 3/4 x 17 1/2 x 18 1/2 inches
price: $10,000
For more information and purchase inquiries, please contact:
Lisa Naples
215-340-0964
lisanaplesceramics@gmail.com
This piece marks an unexpected shift from representational to non-representational in the larger pieces. I had planned to make a larger adaptation of Gestation II but this one wasn’t intended for that direction. It happened early in the process. I was still working out best practices re: proportion and scale. I had set out with a plan to put rabbit heads atop the two figures. They would be in conflict of one sort or another. But the scale of the piece, the thinness of the original slab (1/4”) and the way I was cutting the darts all conspired to find it starting to collapse. Stabilizing it and continuing on meant accepting imperfection here. I took a page from the Japanese art of Kintzugi and celebrated the imperfections by highlighting them in gold instead of repairing and (thereby) hiding them. By doing this, there was an honest visual record of the piece’s history. I didn’t know if the piece would make it through the firings or collapse completely. I chose not to take the time making heads for it and invited myself to complete the piece in the simplest way I could. I was no longer attached to this piece surviving so it became easy to risk it completely which opened my heart and mind to an unchartered, expansive territory.
I tried a few different permutations before settling on the interlocking forms at the top: male and female + concave and convex.
Once this piece was finished I had to take a break from working large bc now there was another direction presenting itself. I wanted to noodle with it. So that’s when I moved back to making studies. Aside from “Study for Tenderness”, all 5 other studies were made next.
The “studies for Integration” were a direct progression from Gestation II (6 years later). And in fact, “Dialectic” was made on the way to making “Integration I and II”. I could see that there was a completeness about it w/out adding another thing. Yet, I was still curious to see how it might communicate differently if I added the very top forms split in half. As I look at them now, I see the amplification of meaning in the final 2. It’s like a human being with their arms raised in the air. It’s an exclamation of sorts.
A friend put it this way: The representational ones come from the Lisa who cares so much about her audience’s comprehension. And the non-representational ones come from the Lisa who just wants to tell the truth and isn’t attached to whether her audience understands.
Choosing Presence
2025
Custom red clay, slip palette and satin glaze formulated by artist, commercial underglaze, and 23 carat gold luster
33 x 14 x 15 inches
price: $15,000
For more information and purchase inquiries, please contact:
Lisa Naples
215-340-0964
lisanaplesceramics@gmail.com
Somewhere in my late 40’s, I came to realize that when I didn’t consciously direct my attention, that my attention flitted with the winds of some internal free-association much like a milkweed seed puff flits across a Summer field. And that furthermore, that free-association was often underpinned by worries, concerns or memories.
Consciously directing my attention meant being present and alert, in the now moment rather than in the past or the future. It meant showing up for my life instead of bumping along in a state of illusion. This is when I began meditating in earnest. I find it both grounding and a practice that strengthens this ‘muscle’ of presence.
In this 3-headed sculpture, the creamy white figure is fully articulated with detail. It is clearly holding a dispassionate gaze forward while also embracing the presence of 2 dis-regulated figures coming at it. It’s a visual depiction of my experience described above. Illusory thoughts come in as storytellers of future/past. Sometimes they’re menacing. Sometimes they’re inflated. They’re always exaggerations of one kind or another bc they come from the constructed (ego) self: the one concerned with image or staying safe.
The 2 grey/green figures symbolize the mind when left to flit. It often finds something to grab hold of, and immediately these thoughts have babies (so to speak). Supporting thoughts that embolden the original thought (as illustrated by the heads and partial heads attached down the backs of the 2 green figures).
As a human being committed to living as fully and authentically as possible, I choose not to have my life run by this false self as best as I can. I practice presence so that I can live from presence and relate to others from presence to the best of my ability on any given day. It’s a practice and an intention. I’m on that road and can attest to how bumpy it is w/myriad detours and spans of construction. But that’s the road… the reality and I’m deeply grateful to be able to see it and that my Spirit has chosen to be on it.
Tenderness
2024
Custom red clay, slip palette and satin glaze formulated by artist, commercial underglaze, and 23 carat gold luster
36 x 16 x 16 inches
price: $10,000
For more information and purchase inquiries, please contact:
Lisa Naples
215-340-0964
lisanaplesceramics@gmail.com
I knew when I began this body of work that I wanted to express the emotion of tenderness. It’s one of the many ways I relate toward myself and one that I felt I wanted to represent on the large scale. So the study came first and then the large version was the next thing I made. These were the 1st 2 pieces made in the series.
The heads on “Tenderness” were made separately from the body. My kiln has an interior chamber measuring 27” high when no kiln shelves are present. I wanted to go higher with the inclusion of the heads so chose to make them separately and attach them with epoxy after the parts were fired.
Study for Tenderness
2024
Custom red clay, slip palette and satin glaze formulated by artist, commercial underglaze, and 23 carat gold luster
14 x 6 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches
price: $NFS
For more information and purchase inquiries, please contact:
Lisa Naples
215-340-0964
lisanaplesceramics@gmail.com
First and Second Study for Integration
2025
Custom red clay, slip palette and satin glaze formulated by artist, commercial underglaze, and 23 carat gold luster
13 x 6 x 4 1/2 inches
price: $800
For more information and purchase inquiries, please contact:
Lisa Naples
215-340-0964
lisanaplesceramics@gmail.com
Lost
2024
Custom red clay, slip palette and satin glaze formulated by artist, commercial underglaze, and 23 carat gold luster
14 x 6 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches
price: $1,500
For more information and purchase inquiries, please contact:
Lisa Naples
215-340-0964
lisanaplesceramics@gmail.com
“Lost” is the most vulnerable of the studies. It shows the times I’ve found myself beating ‘me’ up for a perceived failing even though that ‘me’ is already registering sadness and/or a sense of pained regret.
Seeing Red and Choosing Not to Involve
2024
Custom red clay, slip palette and satin glaze formulated by artist, commercial underglaze, and 23 carat gold luster
14 x 6 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches
price: $1,500
For more information and purchase inquiries, please contact:
Lisa Naples
215-340-0964
lisanaplesceramics@gmail.com
“Seeing Red and Choosing Not to Involve” was a study that evolved into the larger sculpture: “Choosing Presence”.
1:3
2024
Custom red clay, slip palette and satin glaze formulated by artist, commercial underglaze, and 23 carat gold luster
9 x 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches
price: $800
For more information and purchase inquiries, please contact:
Lisa Naples
215-340-0964
lisanaplesceramics@gmail.com
All 3 of the non-representational studies allowed me to explore proportion and the use of gold in varying placements.
Completion (2 pieces)
2025
Custom red clay, slip palette and satin glaze formulated by artist, commercial underglaze, and 23 carat gold luster
6 1/2 x 22 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches
price: $2,000
For more information and purchase inquiries, please contact:
Lisa Naples
215-340-0964
lisanaplesceramics@gmail.com
In January of 2025, once the 6 large sculptures were complete, I set out to explore the potential I sensed was present in one particular part of those larger forms. It presents itself as the gold “V” shaped form that lies between the 2 sides, up at the top of Dialectic. It can be seen in other pieces but for the sake of identifying what I was starting with, Dialectic illustrates it nicely.
If you cooked a raw shrimp, then de-veined it, you’d have this shape in your hands. Each time I held those forms which I’d made custom for the larger sculptures, I found myself curious about their potential. So I began my January-February exploration there.
It immediately found completion as a hollow ‘heart’ form (think Valentine). Not prone to kitsch, but wanting to honor the flow of creativity, I proceeded to make some hearts in varying sizes. Then process influenced the direction these took quite quickly and they became something very different. Small sculptures with mysterious interior spaces and layers of meaning on their surfaces: a labyrinth, an ear with a gold interior, a hidden golden chamber with a modest heart shaped exterior. They seemed to be going in the direction of inside-outside playfulness.
Then one day, an artist friend visited the studio and took 2 of them and moved them around the table. She said: “What if they’re part of something larger; not meant to stand alone.” And immediately I saw the infinity forms for the wall titled: “Remembering Infinity” and “Completion”.
These both say what “Integration I and II” as well as “dialectic” all say. They say it through a new form language and on the wall instead of on a pedestal. Interesting for me to note at this point in the process that expressing ideas around integration kept coming up over and over. And even when I entered the creative process through the form-exercise I’ve described to you above, the resulting expression went in that same direction: Integration… the resolution of opposites… holding both...
It was interesting for me to note that intuitively, when I completed the 6th large sculpture: “Choosing Presence”, I felt as though I was finished with this content; that the show was done. So honoring the impulse to explore that last clue (presented in form as the cooked, deveined shrimp), and having it resolve to the place of ‘integration’ confirmed for me that the show was now complete.
Recognizing Infinity
(2 pieces)
2025
Custom red clay, slip palette and satin glaze formulated by artist, commercial underglaze, and 23 carat gold luster
7 1/2 x 28 x 6 1/2 inches
price: $3,000
For more information and purchase inquiries, please contact:
Lisa Naples
215-340-0964
lisanaplesceramics@gmail.com
Dialectic
2024
Custom red clay, slip palette and satin glaze formulated by artist, commercial underglaze, and 23 carat gold luster
24 x 14 x 14 inches
price: $8,000
For more information and purchase inquiries, please contact:
Lisa Naples
215-340-0964
lisanaplesceramics@gmail.com
I started out making this piece to become Integration I. But when I got to the top, I realized that leaving it w/out the addition of the vertical appendages, it was complete. It didn’t need them to speak about the concept of integration. The form was moving toward closure and left alone, it struck me as a poetic reduction.
I called it “Dialectic” because it visually exemplifies the harmonious co-existence of opposites.
Integration I
2024
Custom red clay, slip palette and satin glaze formulated by artist, commercial underglaze, and 23 carat gold luster
36 x 16 x 16 inches
price: $10,000
For more information and purchase inquiries, please contact:
Lisa Naples
215-340-0964
lisanaplesceramics@gmail.com
Integration I was clear in my mind early on. As I set out to make it the first time, it turned into Dialectic. As I finished Dialectic, I knew it was complete but still felt the need to see the form with the split cylinder at the top. I was getting better at making these gigantic slabs and challenged myself to make one as tall as I possibly could w/in the limits of my kiln.
The interior height of my kiln is 27” but if I detached the lid from the wall, I could get away with adding a course of soft bricks to the top of the wall thereby increasing the height to 30”. The lid of the kiln could be laid back down atop the soft bricks and fired as I normally would.
The split cylinder was made separately, and an epoxy adhesive was used to attach those parts to the body of the piece.
Integration II
2025
Custom red clay, slip palette and satin glaze formulated by artist, commercial underglaze, and 23 carat gold luster
37 x 13 x 14 inches
price: $10,000
For more information and purchase inquiries, please contact:
Lisa Naples
215-340-0964
lisanaplesceramics@gmail.com
Integration II came about in response to Integration I. At this point, it struck me that the split cylinder at the top of Integration I was very masculine and I wondered what it would do to the overall feel of the form to make that upper part curved instead. So, I set out once again to make a slab in that scale that exceeded the kiln height (like I’d done with Integration I).
Other aspects of Integration II became more rounded than the same aspects had been in Integration I. As they stand together now, I see them as male and female versions of one another. They’re powerful together. In the gallery at the Michener Museum they seem to be guardians, anchoring the show.