In this Q&A from 2021, Ceramics Studio Manager Dove Hornbuckle shares about their intuitive and spiritual relationship with clay and the oasis of Ox-Bow.
1. Tell us about yourself.
To me, there feels like an infinite amount of ways to describe oneself as there are so many human perspectives to observe oneself from: it could be within a depression, or ego-based, nostalgic, full of pity or passion, self-lacerating or affirming, with great love and humility, etc.
I feel very empathetic to the roles of ‘maker’ and ‘artist’ - to me, they are romantic and robust, somewhat direct and full of self invention.
I aspire to be a maker and artist of my full potential, someone who has the courage and self knowledge to continue forward, despite the infinite varieties of ordinary human traumas and hiccups that greet us, and knock us slightly off course.
I was born in New York City, my deep rooted home, as it was there that I first relished in my queerness and authentic optimism as a young adult. I would like to travel broadly and know many many people, and feel at home more so in the greater pasture of our connected planet.
I first came to Ox-Bow as a summer fellow in 2018 after I graduated from Rhode Island School of Design’s (RISD) master’s program in ceramics. Finding home, queer connectivity, and artistic fulfillment at Ox-Bow has been one of the greatest gifts of my adult life.
Dove Hornbuckle, Self-Control, 2020, stoneware and glaze, 21 L x 13 W x 18 H inches,
2: Describe Your Own Art Practice
I think of my art practice as putting ideas to form. It’s an intuitive, spiritual, mysterious, evasive and highly rewarding mutable experience. It is also a desire for communication. The process of creating art is a pathway to truly know myself. To do this I must be curious, open and present for the innumerable changes of self that occur throughout my life. In my thinking I continually come back to the Buddhist concept of Anattā, essentially that there is no permanent Self.
Making art is like creating a time capsule, the ‘object’ encapsulates the subtle nuances and autobiographical elements of myself when I make the work. I witness myself through the making of art. I can utilize the artworks that I create as a source of reflection to think back upon, remember, and reevaluate who I was when I made the work. Often, I have much more compassion for who I was in hindsight, which differs from the ordinary narratives of self-criticism that I have for who I am in the present.
This brings me further into a pathway of understanding myself also as a human ‘object’ of infinite relativity and thus I can become anything, transform myself infinitely, and can choose to take on more gentler, more affirming, more loving, more proactive aspects of my Being. If I didn’t love myself a moment ago then I can accept and acknowledge that. That moment has passed, and there is no going back, and that moment will never happen again. So, I am already moving forward and in that procession can choose to change, with informed intention and training of the mind, in order to bring new realizations into the future of my heart-centered wellbeing.
3: When and how did you first come to know Ox-Bow?
While I was finishing my undergraduate degree at SAIC I often heard fellow student’s experiences of a mysterious place called Ox-Bow. They seemingly came back from a separate planet, somewhere full of messy fun and connectivity. It wasn’t until I finished my graduate degree at RISD in 2018 that I did further research and applied to be a resident of Ox-Bow’s summer fellowship. I perceived the opportunity as this perfect post-degree oasis to recenter my practice: that Ox-Bow could be a space to rest and to engage with a new community of artists whom I could learn from and collaborate with as we experienced a magical summer together - and it was.
My fellowship summer truly changed the course of my life and intensely reinvigorated my working practice as an artist. This was, in part, due to the immense and multifaceted social atmospheres at Ox-Bow. Upon arriving I was immediately surrounded by the other fellows who had come from a similar background as a student, or recent alumni of an art school. I remember my first days at Ox-Bow vividly, particularly the enthusiastic invitations to celebrations, parties, gatherings, the sharing of zodiac signs, etc. It was such a joy-oriented and eventful summer that I knew I had to stay after my summer fellowship had ended.
(left to right) Dove Hornbuckle, Claire Arctander, and Eric May stand on stage at the 2023 Field of Vision Benefit as John Rossi DJs in the background. Image courtesy of Claire Arctander.
4: Did you always work in ceramics?
I haphazardly stumbled into ceramics as an undergraduate student at SAIC, completely unaware that the medium would direct the course of my making so intensely over the next several years and into the present day. As an undergrad, I found that other students had experiences with ceramics as children or in high school, but this was not my experience, and, to my advantage, I found that I did not have many preconceived ideas of my abilities with ceramics when I first encountered the material. I found ceramics to be a refreshing and less neurotic connection to my previous work with painting, it gave me the ability to work with color in the 3d, to make color stand up. I felt less precious with clay, and more able to work in modular forms, finding curiosity and joy with its plasticity and unpredictability. Clay is a time-based material, and there is always a balancing act of artistic agency and material limitations.
The mutable materiality of clay and particularly the glazing process creates an amicable union between color and form; there is a transfiguration within the firing process, and they essentially become the same thing. I continue to find myself opening warm kilns after they have been fired to become mesmerized and occasionally laugh at the results. I am in love with this connection between body, material, form, and color.
5. Tell us what being a studio manager at Ox-Bow means to you
Being the ceramics studio manager, to me, means that I take on the responsibility and service of a community member who acknowledges the importance of their cohabitational role at Ox-Bow. Many students, artists, instructors, mentors, fellows and staff members benefit from the ceramics studio and from its functional and operational wellbeing. I find this, at times, intimidating but mostly thrilling because I am actively embodying and participating within a role that allows for the development and pleasures and joys of making art.
Dove Hornbuckle (they/them) is an interdisciplinary artist working within ceramic sculpture, queer community organizing, and radical faeries traditions. Previous solo exhibitions have been held in Chicago, at Goldfinch Gallery, To Hear a Call, To Answer a Call, 2023 and Roots & Culture, Earth, My Likeness, 2020. Past awards include a teaching fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center in 2020, and the LeRoy Neiman Fellowship from the Ox-Bow School of Art in 2018. Past teaching roles have been held as Adjunct Professor in the Art and Art History department at Hope College, lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the Ceramics Department, and instructor at the Ox-Bow School of Art & Artists’ Residency. They have served as the Ceramics Studio Manager at the Ox-Bow School of Art & Artists’ Residency since 2019.
This interview was conducted by Ashley Freeby and originally published in Experience Ox-Bow 2021.
Header image features: Sleep, 2020, concrete and steel, 48 L, x 9 W x 46 H inches