2014

Objects of My Devotion

We all have memories we can’t let go of, or spend years trying to recall or recreate. We think they are there, but like shadows on walls, they distort and their meanings shift. I don’t have many happy memories from my childhood, but I have vivid memories of the ceramic objects my mother would bring home after an outing doing ceramics, a hobby of hers. Every holiday our home was filled with beautifully glazed, but tragically whimsical figures, such as a three-foot white stoneware Christmas tree with plastic lights and enough ceramic pumpkins to fill a Halloween shop.
However, the objects most fascinating to me were the Easter decorations. We had a large collection of bunnies and eggs in all sizes and colors. I would seek them out year-round and play with them, creating sensational assemblages and narratives. I became devoted to these objects because they were an escape. Now, many years later, I am devoted to their memories.

When I learned that my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimers, I shifted my focus to re-creating haunting and fragile assemblages from molds similar to the ones my mom used. I set out to re-shape my fragmented memories to better understand them. Years ago, I was just a little boy devoted to the creations of my mother. Now I am an adult trying to remember and make meaning of the past.

Jeff Herrity worked in the Internet industry for many years before returning to the Corcoran College of Art + Design in 2008 where he received his BFA as well as his Masters in Art Education. For the past several years he has been teaching art and technology classes at the Lab School of Washington and is also a member of Flux Studios, and now a member of Red Dirt Studios where he will continue to refine porcelain sculpture work. Jeff has been in many shows from the WPA Auction in 2013, to the inaugural year of the (e)merge art festival where he created a large site specific installation. His porcelain work has been shown twice in the Smithsonian Craft Show Emerging Artists in 2009 and 2010. More recently his work has been in Asheville, North Carolina at a Handmade in America show in 2012, and had a piece in the International Glass and Clay show at the Pepco Edison Gallery which then toured the UK. He has also shown work at the Fridge Gallery in 2012, Baltimore Clayworks, Hamiltonian Gallery (Call Collect Fundraiser), the Renaissance Dupont Hotel, La Fabrica Aurora in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, the Corcoran Gallery of Art (BFA exhibit), Gallery 31 at the Corcoran, THREAD at Union Market, and Civilian Art Projects. His photography work has even been used in the set design for a production of God of Carnage at the Signature Theater in Arlington, Virginia.