Opening Reception: Saturday, July 12, 2025, 6:00 – 8:00 pm
The 2024-25 EMBARC Fellow Exhibition features the thought-provoking work of Kashima Robinson. This exhibition highlights Kashima’s exploration of sculptural forms, mosaics like structures, tiles, and intricate containers that reflect themes of self-discovery and transformation. Their work invites viewers to engage with moments of transition and ambiguity, challenging perceptions and offering insight into the spaces between defined forms.
Kashima Robinson is a Baltimore based artist. They studied Ceramics at MICA after graduating from CCBC, where they received their AFA. There is a focus on non-function sculptural ceramic forms. I use the work as a way to highlight things that exist in between one defined form and the next. I’ve made a practice out of interrupting perceptions through creating mosaics like ceramic tiles and containers. It has helped me to document instances of self-discovery and dissolution utilizing ceramic materials as the medium.
In the past, I’ve found myself ungrounded in my point of view. I’ve spent so much time as a witness to how other people perceive me that I had not thoroughly considered myself an active participant in how I am to be defined. I’m a black American artist and I’m offering vessels in my place. I use the work as a tool for projection. I’m so curious about how people perceive me. There’s a lot of work around me asking questions about where and how I exist in relation to everything and everyone else in the world. I’ve found that others’ perceptions of me and my perception of myself is something that’s often in an ever-changing fluid state.
I make work around and about the idea of space both in regards to celestial bodies like the sun and the moon and also space as in, perceived voids of matter, or emptiness.I make use of the idea of mosaics. When viewing mosaics we look for patterns and contexts within the defined shapes. We search for something familiar or definite to latch onto but our perceptions are interrupted by the distance between one defined shape to the next. I’ve devoted myself to identifying and personifying what fills that empty space. If it’s air I talk about the wind and how it acts upon the world around it. If it’s water I talk about the vessel it’s held in or the one it’s holding. But I’m always talking about the distance or space in-between.
There’s a lot of work dedicated to someone I no longer speak to. Dedicated to versions of me that are gone or in-between. What emerges from that is tenderness but also grief.I view transformation as a semantic death. Therefore the way I communicate with the past is sometimes through a poem, an offering, or another gesture like a wave. I want to make work that helps me communicate my feelings about being seen and how other people’s perceptions of me impact my ever-changing identity. I want to interrupt other people’s perceptions of me and I want to offer a vessel in my place.
This past year has allowed me to rediscover a playful spirit that speaks to me through clay. While at Baltimore Clayworks, I’ve branched out my practice in a few different directions. Each concept references and supports the others, deepening at the core.
The first discernible pillar is the use of text as composition instead of the use of words as the primary means of communication. What arises is a gentle advocacy for silence and communication through small gestures and visual cues in good faith. Like a Tree, the Wind, and a Wave, the breath of the work has a life of its own, independent of the word. But the aesthetics are very important. You may find Morse code, parentheses, and other punctuation severed from a sentence, mounted and put on display as a spectacle.
The second pillar is movement; depictions of literal vehicles were made. Also, I’ve been documenting the experience of moving waters as a potential healing mechanism that generates feelings of wholeness where there are empty spaces (holes, fractures, and tears). In the work, I’m dealing with a distance in physical spaces as well as gaps in time being mended and traversed through body and spirit.
Which leads me to the third pillar being remembrance, this one’s more subtle and is the breath behind all spoken and unspoken pieces of my journey, then reflected through more universal stories I’ve learned through Yoga, and being a student of astrology. Some of the pieces very subtly refer to a moment in time when I fell ill or was injured and the recovery that followed. Whether that injury be something I was born with, a mountain I climbed, or a hill I fell down.
Shape, Shift & Mend is a practice around and about me, documenting cycles of self-discovery and dissolution. A bit of care was present in considering which objects get created where they sit and imagining when they dissolve or what expressions they inspire a viewer to adorn or strip from their being. Shape-shifting and mending is the journey of seeking sincere expression. A collection of forms that can be seen for their beauty and also seen through. Taking a moment to acknowledge the beauty that comes from mending and finding integrity in the fluidity of one’s expressions.
Baltimore Clayworks is proud to present the 2024-25 Lormina Salter Fellow Exhibition, showcasing the work of Kristyn Rohrer. Kristyn’s compelling ceramic sculptures blend process, design, and storytelling, reflecting on their Mennonite heritage while reinterpreting the nostalgia of Pennsylvania Dutch culture through a contemporary lens. This exhibition invites viewers to explore themes of identity, tradition, and transformation expressed through Kristyn’s unique artistic voice.
Celebrate the vibrant spirit of summer with Baltimore Clayworks’ Community Arts Summer Showcase! The work in the show is from our monthly session at the Library. During these session Teachers from Baltimore Clayworks provide a multi-sensory art making experience for the blind and low vision attendants. Our staff have shared that their experience at the library has been one of reciprocity, stating that those involved bring them as much joy and excitement as they provide with their lessons. Join us in honoring the incredible stories, talents, and collaborations that emerge when art meets community.
