shannon goff
state college, pennsylvania, usa
Shannon Goff at work on Doyenne, 2015. Paper clay, unfired.
Shannon Goff, Soubrette, 2019. Paper clay, glaze. 19” x 13” x 11”
Shannon Goff, Bananatown 2019. Glazed ceramic, with banana cast in porcelain from a plaster positive. 17” x 15” x 10”
I make objects from cardboard and clay. My work, however, is heavily rooted in the practice of drawing. Drawing is a linear tool, a tangible way to investigate, think, and visually translate an idea into space. It is a generative process that allows me to move from description, to interpretation, to abstraction—where new questions and possibilities arise. A line can manifest itself in myriad ways, from the simple to the abstruse. Clay is liberating as a drawing material because the material is the structure, the line itself. With cardboard, the line is often created by an intense infrastructure that demarcates where two planes almost meet. As a maker, I oscillate between translating line through negative space and drawing out loud in three dimensions. These two distinct approaches yield sculptural works in cardboard and clay that are seemingly disparate, yet both exploit the buoyancy of line and a commitment to hand building. They operate like dialects of a language. They speak to each other, and most often run in parallel, but I always await their collision.
Earlier this year, pre-pandemic, a theme of resurrection kept emerging in my work, especially while building on top of previous “failures.” Such efforts yielded Layer Cake, Smoking Gun, Soubrette, and Bananatown to name a few. Bananatown is trophy-like, the ceramic elevating and celebrating the cardboard, and much more.
Launch, a piece still in progress, rolled out and up in early March, while the news was flush with SpaceX launches and erupting fears of the Coronavirus; its completion awaits my return to my campus office studio. The cardboard positive of a butchered telephone longs for its coating of sealant before it gets put through the plaster mold-making process; it will eventually serve as an anchor for a lobster—an homage to Dali, and a nod to the perpetuation of the precarious balance between technology and nature, access and value.
During the lockdown I've been home with my husband and two young children; half of our home-studio has been a construction site since mid-March. Despite this obstacle, I hold myself in gratitude and try to frame my discomfort as an opportunity. I’ve been growing vegetables and planting sunflower circles; mastering the baked donut; drawing on paper, and with cardboard and clay; going on lengthy walks to digest a well-earned sabbatical forfeited to homeschooling; organizing community engagement projects; and marching for social justice and racial equality. The pivot has produced a varied output: from erupting volcanoes, doll fashion and child-size cardboard car design, to anti-racism education. The most rewarding aspect of this period has been the opportunity to work with young, energetic, curious, and present collaborators. The Great Pause has gifted me with a newfound appreciation for the privilege of movement.
Shannon Goff, Miles to Empty, 2015, a life-size Lincoln Continental Mark V, hand built in cardboard. Installation view at the Susanne Hillbery Gallery, Ferndale, Michigan. 19’ x 6’ 5” x 4’ 9”. See Janet Abrams, “Imaginary Mobilities: Journeys in Cardboard and Clay” in Shannon Goff: Miles to Empty, artist monograph, 2016.
during the lockdown, shannon goff spent her spring semester sabbatical from Penn State University doing a different kind of teaching: home-schooling her two young children. COMPLETION OF her latest ceramic piece, LAUNCH, is on hold until she can return to her OFFICE studio on the PSU CAMPUS.
Shannon Goff, Telephone for a forthcoming sculpture, 2020. Cardboard model to be used for molding a telephone in plaster
Shannon Goff, Launch, in progress, 2020. Paper clay, as yet unfired.
Shannon Goff, How to Make a Volcano, 2020, home schooling project with her children Marcela (pictured above, in safety gear) and Felix, who made their papier-mâché volcanoes erupt with “lava” made from a kid-safe mix of baking powder and dishwashing liquid.
Shannon Goff’s son Felix at work on building a kid-sized car, 2020. Cardboard car-making evidently runs in the family: