Raised in Anchorage, Alaska Leanne received a B.F.A. in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the University of Minnesota in 1997. In 2002 she received her M.F.A. at Louisiana State University. Currently Leanne is a Full-time Instructor and Department Chair of Art, Music, Theatre, Film and Video Games Studies (ETEC) at the Baton Rouge Community College. Leanne has exhibited all over the U.S. as well as being an artist-in-residence at the Archie Bray Foundation and Watershed. She is the Emerging Artist 2007 for NCECA, (National Council on Education for the Ceramics Arts) and has upcoming show at the Baton Rouge Gallery in March. She is engaged to be married to Harold Cambric , a Texan and a painter, in April.
Appetite’s Syntax Artist Statement
Leanne McClurg
“The second-hardest thing I have to do is not be longing’s slave” Sarah Manguso wrote that in a poem entitled “Hell”. I twirl the last two words around in my brain. “Longing’s slave” They seem to fit too well, register in my body as some part of my identity. That’s the second-hardest thing I have to do too.
Two years ago I began to ask questions about how we make decisions. What is instinct? What is intuition? What is learned behavior? How do we survive? These questions have led me to investigate my choices and to see that many of my turns are guided by one main device: Appetite. I long for situations, things, feelings. It is within this hunger for something “other than” that motivates many of the decisions I’ve made. It is within that struggle of accepting things as they are that I begin to understand my own humanity and find connection again with an animal’s self sufficiency and instinct.
What do you long for? What are your desires? How strong is your appetite? Can we share experiences?
I have been undressing the vocabulary of appetite. I see a series of images that trigger desire for the other, they become the foundation of my drawings. The vessels I make are the vehicle for appetite. They can deliver satisfaction to the body and at the same time they can be the object of desire.
I begin with my body, my perception, it is the genesis for all that I make. My impetus for making is to convey a certain truth about my life experiences. I am interested in the connection between the instinct of consumption and the repercussions of fulfilling that desire on the body.
As an artist I want to make my human experience sharable. My work represents an extension of my physical being. When someone uses a cup I made I want them to think of my lip kissing theirs as they drink. I draw inspiration from how my full body interacts with other objects, other bodies.
Decision making is the impetus for my current body of work. I began by looking at the distinctions between internal forces like instinct and intuition and how that influences our external body.
Instinct is an automatic response our body makes for longevity. Procreation and protection are the clearest examples of instinct and behaviors that we have most in common with animals. I use animals as a connection to address instinctual issues but also feelings of comfort and the familiar.
Tattoos are a type of marker of the past or set of instructions as to how to live life. I etch the drawings into my pots as a tattoo artist etches permanently into the skin. Both are a record and a reminder.
The presence of my fingers pinching the work is proof of my body as maker. Every breath, like every fingerprint in clay, is a record of my existence that I want to communicate.
