Daniel Weiss is a ceramicist, writer, and archaeologist from River Forest, IL. He is an alum of Tupelo Press's 30/30 Project, and his sculpture is forthcoming in the Sebastopol Center for the Arts' juried exhibition, Resist and Persist: Social (in)Justice. His poetry appears in The Ekphrastic Review, Wayfarer Magazine, and Shadowplay.
With his body of political sculpture, he seeks to inform and inflame by offering an intimate portrait of contemporary political horrors. As immediately as these horrors occupy the present, so too will they haunt history. Ceramic art, in its unique resistance to decomposition, is one of the many tangible pieces of history that will haunt on the individual level, offering audiences an indelible account of present injustices.
His political work is complemented by a body of abstract sculpture. He additionally produces and sells functional ware.
Ceramic art survives millennia.
In the field, it is one of the most common artifacts I encounter. The potsherds I find in my screen inspire the pots that I make on my wheel.
I produce my political work in conversation with this inherent permanence. What is made today may be observed a century from now.
Just as ceramic in the archaeological record tells of the moment it was produced, so too does my political sculpture strive to bookmark the stories of present injustices for the future to observe.
Editorial design
Freelance, 2017
Through archaeology, I have encountered ceramic work thousands of years old. I produce every piece with the understanding that in an equivalent amount of time, our lives may also persist only in the art that we have left behind. It is important in this political moment to produce with purpose; not only as voices of the present, but as voices that will come to represent the past.
