TORII COOPER
MEDIUM
Ceramics
ARTIST STATEMENT
“In my opinion, the highest form of beauty when it comes to vessels is an old, rusty bucket. Every vase I make is a struggle to improve upon that bucket. I hope I never succeed.”
ARTIST BIO
Although formally educated, Torii’s formative years as an adult were spent as an archaeological photographer in the National Park Service. “I once spent a week without talking to another human being, and I came back sort of feral.” The biggest life lesson she brought home from the NPS was: “After experiencing so much solitude as well as intense camaraderie, I decided the most important thing in life is laughter… and tacos.”
When asked how she transitioned from the Park Service to sculpture, she stated: “I don’t really know. My brain just kinda itched to make things, and I was always getting into trouble in the parks. Once at the Grand Canyon, we had a flood at the entrance station, and all the cars had to drive really slow through the water. Somehow, I had gotten ahold of about 30 or so boxes of those marshmallow candies that look like little yellow ducklings—Peeps. I floated them in all the huge puddles around the cars entering the park. It was absolutely delightful, and I thought it so very artsy… until it made a huge mess. I was always doing stuff like that; I was really a terrible ranger. However, that’s how my descent into sculpture began, by getting into trouble. Performative at first, then I moved through all sorts of materials, and then, like most people who touch clay, I fell in love.”
Torii infuses her sense of play into every aspect of life: “I taught ceramics to elementary school kids for years, and my favorite lesson was anatomy. I let all the kids draw on my face with makeup to better understand symmetry. At the end of the day, the other teachers would look at me and laugh. I’d look back at them and very seriously say, ‘Never be afraid to be a fool for what you love.’ And that’s really how I try to live my life.”
Though she achieved her master’s in ceramics, traditional ceramics is relatively new to Torii; her MFA being based in sculpture rather than functional ceramics. Ergo, she’s still in the process of teaching herself how to best approach the vessels she is currently working on. However, it can be said that her aesthetic is a direct reflection of her feral side: “I love the idea of something that was once ‘civilized’ or ‘polished’ that has been left alone to become ‘untamed’ or allowed to rot, being brought back in from the wilds, dusted off, and just admired for its journey—flaws and all. That’s the essence I’m trying to infuse in my vessels.”
