Adams Puryear grew up in Massachusetts and attended the Massachusetts College of Art. After graduation in 2004 he moved to New York and started an internship turned assistantship turned residency at Greenwich House Pottery in the West Village of Manhattan. He currently lives in Brooklyn.
Hi Adam! What’s happening?
Hi Erica! I’m glad to be fake-talking to you. I’m about to start another series of anti-tech missiles. It is very exciting.
What’s your favorite thing about living in Brooklyn?
The culture here is pretty incredible. There is a little something here for everyone in the arts. There are crazy art people who do pretty neat things all the time and a lot of great music all over the place -almost all bands come through here. Plus there are a lot of interesting and unique events here all the time and some are free every now and then. It is a fun place to be and there is always something to do.
What’s your least?
I have the usual complaints: it is crowded, stressful, busy, dirty, no trees, and hard to see friends sometimes. It seems that most people have a love/hate relationship here, me included.
Do you have a Day Job, What do you do?
I have two. I am a Resident Artist at a ceramic studio and school called Greenwich House Pottery in the West Village of Manhattan. It is a paid position and requires 15 hours of work a week of kiln loading and clay mixing. The benefits are free materials and kiln firings, studio space, and unlimited access to a shared studio space.
It is in a unique location too. Even though it is the upscale West Village of Manhatten there are still a community of crack heads roaming around and right across the street lives the minimalist/modern artist Frank Stella. That combination keeps things pretty interesting.
I also work as a gallery assistant/art handler/curator at a contemporary Cuban art gallery and informational resource called the Cuban Art Space outside of Chelsea. It is in the Fur Coat district of Manhattan, which is odd and a little silly. Especially when thinking that the people at the Cuba Center (largely left-wing radicals, communists, or anarchists) are surrounded by bourgeois fur wearing men and women.
Art vs. Craft?
They both have their place in the world. For me personally the pottery I make acts as a sketchpad to flush out both my conceptual and technical ideas for the larger sculptures to come. Also it’s easier to sell my pottery, which makes it easier to survive financially as an artist.
Ceramics is still largely in the craft field as it will be for maybe forever. But there is a growing intellectualism in my generation that contains the desire to bring ceramics to the next level in the art world.
What three things inspire your work?
Life Experience is the main influence. It’s a pretty broad inspiration that includes news and current events and culture and trends that provoke an emotion that I want to communicate to others.
One of the latest examples I can think of is a few months ago during short period of time where I had witnessed several bar fights. From these incidents I began making beer steins that had brass knuckle shaped handles. The concept of these steins is to shatter it over your opponent’s head after entering into an dispute where there is no way out. After this action you’d be left with the knuckles to help you triumph in the skirmish.
Handmade pottery is all about a specific use: a pitcher for pouring, a bowl for liquids and solids, a mug for a liquid-sometimes hot. So with these Beer Steins for Barfights, I find it fun to bring pottery a little closer to the edge. Especially because it tends to stay far away, in its proverbial comfort zone.
Why clay as a medium?
In school I was majoring in sculpture and using the usual materials of artschool: metal, wood, and plaster. I enrolled in a wheel working class late junior year and found that clay could more easily achieve a lot of things that the other materials I was working with could not. The fluidity of the material was pretty attractive and the ease and quickness of working with clay appealed to me.
Also throwing clay on a potter’s wheel is often a very meditative process. This course of action gives clay an emotionally positive zen quality that few three dimensional mediums can deliver.
So, you come from a family of creative people, how has that influenced you?
It is a really supportive environment to be born into even when the people in my family’s viewpoints and artistic appreciation differ. It is also helpful when they can edit an artist’s statement well or when I am seekng advice.
Where is the best place to see art in New York?
Chelsea Gallery Openings, usual the first Thursdays of the month is the best. There is so much art and so much variety on those nights that usually one can find something that they like. A lot of the time, there is at least one show that’s beautifully mind-blowing.
