Disorient

Raw materials, clay, glaze chemistry, tape, shipping box, tools, and natural gas for firing

Connor Isenberg, University of Wisconsin-River Falls

In Collaboration with Sydney Widell, Masters Student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Sydney Widell and Connor Isenberg worked together to form these ideas to represent their vision of water. Widell studies the interactions of stream restoration and flooding, and is interested in ways to safely accommodate flooding in  increasingly unpredictable watersheds. She looks to rhetoric and geomorphology to learn how streams and their communities shape and reshape each other. 

The three pieces are meant to confuse the viewer, hence the title. They also represent community through the use of multiple pieces coming together to form one. The bottle forms represent containment within the volume as water takes many shapes and forms, and can be shaped and influenced by restorations. The works can be interpreted in any way, but the grooves in the forms are made intentionally reminiscent of river beds and channels in the landscape. These grooves help guide the glaze across the piece like water choosing the path of least resistance as it pools and overflows uncontrollably dripping off the pot.