Paul S. Briggs
Paul S. Briggs
Profiling, 2021
Glazed stoneware, oxidation, c6
13h x 8w x 10d in
Refuted Vessel
PSB028
Paul S. Briggs
Systemic 1, 2021
Glazed stoneware, oxidation, c6
13h x 10w x 6.50d in
Refuted Vessel
SOLD
Paul S. Briggs
Arrested Development 1, 2021
Glazed stoneware, oxidation, c6
13h x 10w x 6.50d in
Refuted Vessel
SOLD
Paul S. Briggs
Celebrate with me (Lucille Clifton), 2021
Glazed stoneware, oxidation, c6
12.50h x 9.50w x 4.25d in
PSB013
SOLD
"won't you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed."
Lucille Clifton
Paul S. Briggs
Poem N0. 10 (I’m Here) (Sonia Sanchez), 2021
Glazed stoneware, oxidation, c6
12.25h x 7.50w x 6d in
PSB014
SOLD
"You keep saying you were always there
waiting for me to see you.
you said that once
on the wings of a pale green butterfly
you rode across san francisco’s hills
and touched my hair as i caressed
a child called militancy
you keep saying you were always there
holding my small hand
as I walked
unbending Indiana streets i could not see around
and you grew a black mountain
of curves and i turned
and became soft again
you keep saying you were always there
repeating my name softly
as i slept in
slow Pittsburgh blues and you made me
sweat nite dreams that danced
and danced until morning
rained yo/red delirium
you keep saying you were always there
you keep saying you were always there
will you stay love
now that I am here?"
Sonia Sanchez
Paul S. Briggs
I’ve known rivers (Langston Hughes), 2021
Glazed stoneware, oxidation, c6
15.25h x 10w x 5d in
PSB015
SOLD
"I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers."
Langston Hughes
Paul S. Briggs
Momma’s Sayings (Harryette Mullen), 2021
Glazed stoneware, oxidation, c6
12.50h x 11w x 5.50d in
PSB016
SOLD
"Momma had words for us:
We were "crumb crushers,"
"eating machines,"
"bottomless pits."
She made us charter members
of the bonepickers’ club,
saying, "Just don't lot your eyes get bigger
than your stomachs."
Saying, "Take all you want,
but eat all you take."
Saying, “I'm not made of money, you know,
and the man at tile Safeway
don't give away groceries for free."
She trained us not to leave lights on
“a11 over the house,"
because "electricity cots money –
so please turn the light off when you leave a room
and take the white man’s hand out of my pocket."
When we wore small
she called our feet "ant mashers,”
but when we'd outgrow our shoes,
our feet became "platforms."
She told us we must be growing big feet
to support some big heavyset women
(like our grandma Tiddly).
When she had to buy us new underwear
to replace the old ones full of holes,
she'd swear we were growing razor blades in our behinds,
"you tear these drawers up so fast."
Momma had words for us, alright:
She called us "the wrecking crew."
She said our untidy bedroom
looked like "a cyclone struck it."
Our dirty fingernails she called "victory gardens."
And when we'd come in from playing outside
she'd tell us, "You smell like iron rust." She'd say,
"Go take a bath
and get some of that funk off or you."
But when the water ran too long in the tub
she'd yell "That's enough water to wash an elephant."
And after the bath she'd say,
"Be sure and grease those ashy legs."
She'd lemon creme our elbows
and pull the hot comb
through "these touch kinks on your head."
Momma had lots of words for us,
her never quite perfect daughters,
the two brown pennies she wanted to polish
so we'd shine like dimes."
Harryette Mullen
Paul S. Briggs
Caged Birds (Maya Angelou), 2021
Glazed stoneware, oxidation, c6
13.25h x 7.25w x 5.50d in
PSB017
SOLD
"A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn
and he names the sky his own
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom."
Maya Angelou
Paul S. Briggs
Power
(Audre Lorde), 2021
Glazed stoneware, oxidation, c6
14.75h x 8w x 5.50d in
PSB018
SOLD
"The difference between poetry and rhetoric
is being ready to kill
yourself
instead of your children.
I am trapped on a desert of raw gunshot wounds
and a dead child dragging his shattered black
face off the edge of my sleep
blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders
is the only liquid for miles
and my stomach
churns at the imagined taste while
my mouth splits into dry lips
without loyalty or reason
thirsting for the wetness of his blood
as it sinks into the whiteness
of the desert where I am lost
without imagery or magic
trying to make power out of hatred and destruction
trying to heal my dying son with kisses
only the sun will bleach his bones quicker.
A policeman who shot down a ten year old in Queens
stood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish blood
and a voice said “Die you little motherfucker” and
there are tapes to prove it. At his trial
this policeman said in his own defense
“I didn't notice the size nor nothing else
only the color”. And
there are tapes to prove that, too.
Today that 37 year old white man
with 13 years of police forcing
was set free
by eleven white men who said they were satisfied
justice had been done
and one Black Woman who said
“They convinced me” meaning
they had dragged her 4'10'' black Woman's frame
over the hot coals
of four centuries of white male approval
until she let go
the first real power she ever had
and lined her own womb with cement
to make a graveyard for our children.
I have not been able to touch the destruction
within me.
But unless I learn to use
the difference between poetry and rhetoric
my power too will run corrupt as poisonous mold
or lie limp and useless as an unconnected wire
and one day I will take my teenaged plug
and connect it to the nearest socket
raping an 85 year old white woman
who is somebody's mother
and as I beat her senseless and set a torch to her bed
a greek chorus will be singing in 3/4 time
“Poor thing. She never hurt a soul. What beasts they are.”
Audre Lorde
Paul S. Briggs
Windflower, pear glaze, anemone pinch
Glazed stoneware, oxidation, c6
12.50h x 11w x 10.50d in
PSB019
Paul S. Briggs
Windflower, double cuttle tentacle pinch, tri colored
Glazed stoneware, oxidation, c6
12.50h x 11w x 10.50d in
PSB020
SOLD
Paul S. Briggs
Windflower, leaf pinch, double cuttle
Glazed stoneware, oxidation, c6
12.50h x 11w x 10.50d in
PSB021
SOLD
Paul S. Briggs
Pure Pinching Scholar’s form
Glazed stoneware, oxidation, c6
12.50h x 11w x 10.50d in
PSB022
SOLD
Paul S. Briggs
Pure Pinching- Coelenterate
Glazed stoneware, oxidation, c6
14.75h x 8w x 5.50d in
PSB023
SOLD
Paul S. Briggs
Small Sculpture, 2021
Stoneware
3.50h x 3.50w x 3.50d in
PSB038
SOLD
Paul S. Briggs
Small Sculpture, 2021
Stoneware
2.75h x 3.50w x 2.50d in
PSB034
SOLD
Paul S. Briggs
Small Sculpture, 2021
Stoneware
4h x 4w x 4d in
PSB037
SOLD
Paul S. Briggs
Small Sculpture, 2021
Stoneware
3.75h x 5.50w x 3.25d in
PSB033
SOLD
More artwork to come
Lucy Lacoste Gallery will present a solo exhibition of new works by the Massachusetts artist Paul S. Briggs following the recent announcement of the gallery’s representation of his Knot Vessels and Pinched Forms. The show, Intuitive Responses: Poetic Justice in Clay, is on view February 13- March 13, 2021. The center piece of this exhibition will be six sculptures, each inspired by a specific poem written by a noted Black poet. These poets include Lucille Clifton, Sonia Sanchez, Langston Hughes, Harryette Mullen, Maya Angelou and Audre Lorde. A sculpture inspired by Amanda Gorman and her inauguration poem is in the making and may be ready for the opening.
Paul S. Briggs Artist Statement: Poetry Series
The poetry series came about as a way to look for hope and strength during these difficult times and their impact on people of color. It is my work toward finding courage in light of my ongoing work concerning legal violence and incarceration, the disproportionate number of people impacted by the pandemic, and the awakening the siege on the capital brought about as we witnessed the different manner in which people protesting under the banner of Black Lives Matter received versus those flying banners of white supremacy. What became clear was the degree to which black poetry included so much pain and power
Briggs’ forte is bringing issues of the modern Black experience to life through his sculpture. He has written in depth on matters of race and social justice. An artist, professor, philosopher and former pastor, Briggs was first known for making meditative pinch pots. A few years ago, realizing the social injustice of the American prison system, he felt compelled to channel these feelings into series of abstract sculpture. The first series was the Cell Personae, followed by the Knot Vessels, and now the Poetry Series.
To accompany this exhibition there will be a poetry reading, in which the poems are read and the artist talks about the related sculpture.
Biography:
Paul Briggs, born in 1963, grew up in the Hudson Valley of Newburgh, NY taking his first ceramics class in 9th grade. He eventually landed at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. Paul is an artist-teacher with balanced training in Ceramics, Sculpture, and Education. He earned an MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art, an MSED from Alfred University and a PhD in Art Education/Educational Theory and Policy from the Pennsylvania State University. He has taught at all educational levels and in various contexts including the Penland and Haystack Schools of Craft. Recently he was awarded a South Eastern Minnesota Arts Council Grant for the installation, Cell Persona: The Impact of Incarceration on Black Lives. Paul was an Artist in Residence at the Harvard Ceramics Program (2019-2020) and an Associate Professor of Art Education at MassArt.
Briggs’ work can be found in the collections of Flaten Art Museum, St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN.; San Angelo Museum of Art, San Angelo, TX; University of Tennessee, Ewing Gallery, Knoxville, TN: Wellesley College Multifaith Center, Wellesley MA and the Pizutti Collection of Columbus Museum of Art. His work will soon become part of collections at the Smithsonian in Washington DC and the Alfred University Ceramic Museum, Alfred, NY.
We are delighted to include the following catalogue essay written by Wayne Higby, the esteemed Artist- Professor of Ceramic Art at Alfred University and Director and Curator of the Alfred Ceramic Art Museum:
Regarding the Sculpture of Paul Briggs: The Poetry Series
Paul S. Briggs is an artist with an engaging biography as well as a unique resume. His Poetry Series now on view at Lucy Lacoste Gallery is composed of six independent ceramic sculptures that are mysterious, beautiful and unsettling. There is an important research narrative behind the inspiration for this series. However, visitors to the gallery will hopefully not rely too heavily on this story as a means to access and potentially codify the work. Knowing before an experience with the actual sculpture will, no doubt, prohibit the deep looking, feeling-thinking of a genuine encounter. Briggs’s work offers far more than the potency at the core of its inspiration.
We should always give ourselves the opportunity to experience without thought -- without the fear of not knowing. In so doing, we allow for a direct, unguarded encounter with the reveal. We become receptive to the deep disclosure held within the ideas, materials and processes of art. Art is the reveal and there is particular as well as universal meaning housed within. Art is not the backdrop that tries to explain it.
Paul Briggs offers an arresting reveal not only to himself, but to all of us who wish to engage the work of an accomplished maker. This body of work has intellectual and emotional depth born of authenticity. Current trends in ceramic art are left by the wayside. There is genuine risk here and the courage to be vulnerable to the uncovering of meaning. With his Poetry Series, the intense quality of Briggs’s ability to integrate idea, material and process becomes a teaching. The end result is contact without complete closure. This condition is a core aspect of all significant works of art and provokes a desire for numerous return encounters.
Glenn Adamson, the independent writer and curator based in New York (and author of the recently published book Craft—An American History), recently wrote about Briggs in his article for Friedman-Benda:
The Boston-based artist Paul S. Briggs has said that ceramics are, for him, a way to philosophize concretely.” In this seemingly contradictory phrase, we already get a sense of his work, in which deep structures of thought and feeling find material equivalents. Briggs’ series Cell Personae exemplifies this approach. It is his personal response to the “other” pandemic raging through America – the mass incarceration of Black people, which is itself an act of grand-scale criminality. The works amount to a firm, resolved protest against this ongoing tragedy. Each is rectilinear, evoking the confining dimensions of a jail cell, and contains within it a nest of serpentine forms. They could be taken as symbolizing the psychic energy of imprisoned individuals - complex thoughts and emotional torment - or perhaps, more optimistically, the inevitability of eventual change. The works are remarkable for re-scripting the basic vocabulary of ceramics (slab construction and coils); Briggs brings to these familiar techniques a wholly new, compressed and clear meaning, of great relevance in this year of reckoning with issues of race in America.
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