Vase 1901

This vase was made by Olive Forbes Sherman, and it lives here at the Met. It's like she took wet clay and started dancing with it, pushing and pulling, carving and swirling, all the while thinking, "What does this clay want to be?" Look at how the light glazes and reflects off the curves, the way it seems to move like liquid. It’s almost like a chocolate river! The surface is smooth, but you can also see the marks of her hands. The swirling patterns remind me of Art Nouveau, like something Gustav Klimt might dream up, if he were a potter. There’s this one tendril near the base that curls just so, like a tiny question mark. It makes me wonder about all the decisions Sherman made while creating this piece. How much was planned, and how much was just letting the clay do its thing? It's that tension between control and chaos that makes art so exciting, don’t you think?