Daniel Weiss is a ceramicist, writer, and archaeologist from River Forest, Illinois. His poetry appears in The Ekphrastic Review, Wayfarer Magazine, and Shadowplay. His political artwork is complemented by sculptural work and functional ware defined by organic, gestural forms and expressive, stark bodies.
It is neither hyperbole nor melodrama to state that ceramic art lasts millennia.
As a ceramicist, what one does with this fact is up to them.
My political work embraces it. What is made today may be observed a century from now, whether in an attic or a gallery.
Clay is singular in its resistance to decomposition: to reduce fired ceramic art to its original state within a lifetime would require concerted effort.
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.
