Born in Minnesota, with a BA from Marlboro College, an MFA from George Washington University, and apprenticeship to 12th-generation Japanese potter, Tarouemon Nakazato in Karatsu, Japan, and working directly under Takashi Nakazato, Malcolm Wright has brought to his work a diversity of sources.

PHILOSOPHY
I am interested in the functional pot, but not to exclusion. The notions of Japanese functional pottery form the basis for my work: how does the pot feel in my hand? How does food look in the pot? Does the lip invite you to drink from the pot or warn you to keep your distance? Is the pot as enjoyable during the unseemly process of being washed as it was sitting in state on the shelf?

Pottery has to do with communication. When the potter wants to make a particular form, the clay may not want (or be able) to stretch to the desired shape without falling down. So the potter must adjust to accommodate the clay, or change clay. Glazed pottery collects light. The color of the glaze depends upon its chemistry and on the color of the clay underneath. Light is reflected from the surface, angles and edges of the form, affecting how we react to a pot. Do we reach to touch it, admire it from a distance, or look away? In the hand of the user, the pot controls us and communicates with us.

The potter's wheel dictates circular forms, and accordingly, I have made many bowls and vases. However, an interest in geometry, Constructivism and Futurism has led me over the years to make abstract forms for flower arranging, assembled from extruded parts or tubes. Some extruded forms are carefully conceived, planned and executed. But when a piece is finished some scraps are left over. From this point I proceed intuitively to discover what these parts will become.

When a form is strong in and of itself and doesn't need flowers for completion, I will finish and fire the piece without a hole, and present it as sculpture.

I use stoneware, porcelain and brick clay, and also combine them to give me a broad palette of color and surface. I work with the wheel and the extruder, producing both the round vase and the less familiar angular vase. No matter how the forms are created, I think of both in geometric terms and also in terms of use. The surfaces of unglazed porcelain and brick clay are different colors, but of similar feeling: the glazed works represent a more familiar sensibility. It is the wood firing that unites all of the directions.

I am interested in the source of an idea, and how one idea can be developed in two directions at once, both in a soft rounded form and in an angular geometric form, both carrying the same thrust of the original thought. When I look at the small porcelain bowl and the large brick clay extruded sculpture, they are extreme opposites, but they are clearly my work.