Noah Riedel
Helena, MT
Biography
Noah grew up in Tucson, AZ and Chapel Hill, NC. He’s been absorbed with making pots for 23 years in varied contexts and environments. He now lives in Athens, Ohio, where he’s a visiting artist at OU.
Artist Statement
Starting with the essential functional elements of familiar forms, I refine and recreate them in original, meaningful structures. This approach sometimes adds complexity, other times it simplifies things. But in all cases, the process of dissection and restructuring is revealing to me. It leads me to think about those qualities most inherent to common forms, qualities that as often as not go unquestioned or are taken for granted. It’s a designer's approach, as opposed to an aesthetician's. Beauty is important to me, but the beauty I'm after is spare - the object itself in the economy of its form, not an elaboration.