THE OVERTURES

Layered Dimensions

Madeleine Conover and the Connection in Tactility

by Miden Wood

Every month, we’re going to do an interview with our resident artist. Madeleine Conover is Da Vinci Art Alliance’s resident artist for the month of July. 

“Typically in my work you can kind of see that there's layers, and that's partially due to my background in printmaking"

Imagine a print—vibrant, layered, playful even in its depth. Now imagine that you pull on a corner of the image and, to your surprise, it starts to lift off the paper. As you pull, the print gains dimension, becomes solid, all facets and edges and planes. And then you are holding an object—something you can use to rinse fruit or share a snack or drink your morning coffee. How does your experience of the work change when it becomes something you can touch? Something you can return to to fill a need?

“Typically in my work you can kind of see that there's layers, and that's partially due to my background in printmaking,” Madeleine says. She’s sitting in front of rows and rows of bisque-fired dinnerware; bowls and plates and vases painted with images resonant of her print work. Double-ended braids wind around vases; friendly rats scale the rim of a dish. “One of the things that people have said most about my ceramic work as well as my drawings is that they look similar in quality,” Madeleine says of the pieces behind her. “There’s this waviness and this looseness.” That looseness, presented through painstaking iteration, creates a quality something like rooted levity. So often when one feels the deep care, meaning and craft behind a work, there is a weightiness that comes with it—but Madeleine has a knack for layering lightness. Even while sensing the significance it contains, what a hoot to look at this friendly rat.

‘I need something that is more tactile and physical, that I can actually see the progress being made.’

The move from printmaking into ceramics was brought on by a shift in not only what Madeleine wanted to create, but also what she as an artist needed from her medium. “I love printmaking. I teach printmaking... But after I graduated, that summer my grandmother passed, and I was like, ‘I need something that is more tactile and physical, that I can actually see the progress being made…’” She switched into ceramics in an “almost obsessive” way, “to have physical things and to keep my hands busy and my mind busy.”

It feels like that is the magic of tactility—that something being touchable gives it the power to heal; that the object being shareable gives it the power to connect. Madeleine speaks to this intangible quality of tangible things: “Every time I use my friends’ ceramics it just brings so much joy into my life and it reminds me of them—and that's something that I think is really special about a physical object rather than, like, a print on the wall, which still reminds me of someone, but it's not in the same way as, like, washing your berries in the morning in the berry bowl that your friend made, or eating a delicious dinner off a plate that someone you love made.” The care folded into this functional art means that Madeleine’s latest work explores not only a third dimension in space, but an added dimension of connection.

“That's why I'm interested in functional ceramics… The idea that the everyday person could own or could use said object, and it could bring joy to their everyday life, even if it's something really small and simple.” Madeleine points out that when you smooth the lip of a mug so it’s more pleasant to drink from, for example, you’re putting individual attention into another user’s eventual experience. Madeleine describes this functionality as an “interactive element within my work, without making it be too forced.” This perspective gives Madeleine’s work a certain power: when functionality is rote interactivity, she can harness it to go deeper with the viewer, and create something more personal.

“That's why I'm interested in functional ceramics… The idea that the everyday person could own or could use said object, and it could bring joy to their everyday life, even if it's something really small and simple,”

These new layers of connection feel like a natural evolution for Madeleine’s work, which has long explored themes of family, community, and all the ways we intertwine—in particular as it relates to her experience as a Chinese-American adoptee. Previous work, inspired by the discovery of her biological sister, includes a paper garment made to look like two dresses attached to each other at the sleeves, and blown-up slips of fortune cookie fortunes, featuring questions like, “How is it possible to miss someone you cannot remember?” In this concentrated, evocative way, these familiar objects become questions about culture and artifacts of longing.

In her current series, Madeleine continues to explore connection and objects in the context of the Chinese-American diaspora, this time as it relates to community. “The work that I'm making here and finishing here is, as you can see from my plates, a bunch of different dinnerware. I'm really interested in hosting this communal meal for Chinese-American adoptees to come together and eat different cuisine that they've either grown up eating or learned to make.” The dinner would ideally include a tandem cookbook or publication. (Given her BA in both Studio Art and Sustainable Food & Farming, planning this food-forward event feels like another layer of Madeleine’s interests and expertise. Madeleine admits her “very big, random knowledge of vegetables and plants,” with a laugh. “If you're walking around with me, I can always identify a plant.”)

Madeleine’s ideal outcome from the residency? “To meet other people who are… experiencing the same type of diaspora—and just meeting other artists as well,” calling in both those who can relate to her work and those for whom it might be “opening their eyes in a certain way without being so in your face.” To this point, one of the things that is so special about this series and its culminating dinner is that it centers Madeleine’s experience, those who share it, and the connections to be found therein. For others approaching the experience with less familiarity, her intentions almost echo the dishes’ intended potluck-purpose: “not trying to necessarily teach people, but kind of share the knowledge.” Illumination is available; nourishment is the point.

“I'm trying to create different plates that have the different animals of the Chinese zodiac,” Madeleine says of the dishes stacked behind her. “One of my core memories as a kid is going to the Chinese restaurant on Chinese New Year, and they give you the little, like, red, white, and gold placement, and they'd be like, ‘Here's some crayons, color on it.’”

“I'm hoping eventually to have those place mats… as takeaways for people to take home so they can have their own perpetual place mats.” The place mats have been riso printed and are ready to go—and there, again, are the layers: a print, a functional object, and a souvenir of connection, all in one.