STILL LIFE
Therapy Works
A graphic designer’s remedy for too much screen time.
@ N E W. M A T E R I A L
By TIFFANY JOW Photograph by ORION JANECZEK
SOME PEOPLE CREDIT DIGITAL BURNOUT FOR THE RECENT MANIA FOR CERAMICS—A CRAFT THAT IS SLOW AND TACTILE AND CELEBRATES THE HANDS OF ITS MAKER. This
rings true for Orion Janeczek, a graphic designer who works at a branding firm in Portland. “I needed a way to be optimistic about being a creative and geek out about the shapes in my mind,” says the 35 year old, who never touched pottery until 2017. “I found clay to be a good use of my time. It’s been a salvation ever since.” Janeczek’s ceramist friends lent him a wheel, kiln, and basic instruction, and he was off. He slip-cast initial pieces and trimmed others on the wheel, eventually opting to combine the methods with hand-building. The results are weird, chubby objects, such as stained-clay vessels with slip-cast bodies and doughnut-shaped uppers
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he calls “tube tops.” Janeczek christened his ongoing body of work “Brutalism for Lovers” and released images—which he styled and photographed himself—on Instagram in January under the moniker New Material. The work references Native American art (Janeczek was born in West Virginia but raised in New Mexico, where he gets most of his glazes), and the simplified, nonrepresentational forms of Constantin Brâncuși. One piece, a wide oval column with a Y-shaped indent, suggests a female pelvis and thighs. Ultimately, Janeczek’s project is about making things that toe the line between sculpture and utility. “I want to make things that are useful, not provocative,” he says, noting that his mother, an arts educator, found the collection overtly sexual. “I’m trying to keep it kitchen-table appropriate.” h
