Collection: Chance Taylor - Featured Artist

Artist Statement:

My pots are deliberate, highly crafted, and intended for daily use. I draw inspiration from the world around me and have a special affinity for things that grow. I do not seek to replicate natural forms. Rather, I look to the formal logic of plants and flowers, to the feeling and experience of growth, vitality, and beauty. 

My forms are curvilinear, soft, voluminous. They have an expansive feeling that connotes growth, abundance, and generosity. I divide the pots symmetrically, using line as a means of projecting order onto my forms. This evokes the structured, recurring, and purposeful quality of nature. I translate these qualities into something tangible, useful, and nourishing in the form of functional ceramics.

Purposeful ornamentation enhances and highlights areas of  connection and elevates the act of use. The handle should feel as though it were made for your hand and the lip should caress your own as though that were its only purpose. The visual language should enhance the sensual experience.

In these ways, my work can elevate and celebrate the everyday. My hope is that my pots can find their home in the rituals and rhythms of daily life. I believe that in this capacity, as a thing that is a part of life, that something as simple as a cup can profoundly impact our perception and awareness of these everyday tasks, imbuing what was once ordinary with new and growing meaning.

Bio: 

Chance Taylor is a ceramicist and educator who grew up in Fargo, North Dakota. He graduated with a BFA (2018) in ceramics from North Dakota State University and received his MFA (2023) from the University of Missouri, Columbia. He recently completed a one-year residency at Access Arts in Columbia, Mo and is currently Ceramics Technician & Visiting Artist at ETSU, Johnson City, TN. Taylor’s work  draws upon his fascination with an object’s purpose to facilitate culture and  fulfill our psychological, aesthetic, and practical needs through everyday use and ritual.  His most recent work is influenced by the formal logic of plants and flowers and is intended to celebrate and elevate the every-day. 

Taylor has displayed his work across the nation and in publications such as Ceramic Monthly. He has participated in dozens of  juried and invitational exhibitions, most recently he was included in the 2024 Strictly Functional Pottery National, The Southern Mississippi Ceramics National, the Yellow Springs Ceramics National, and completed his solo show Florescence at the Columbia College Hardwick Gallery, Columbia Mo.

Find Chance’s Artaxis page: https://artaxis.org/artist/chance-taylor/

Find Chance on Instagram: @ChanceTaylorCeramics