The Art of Letting Go: Ceramic Sculpture with Rebecca Casement
Welcome to another inspiring conversation on the Create! Podcast. Today we are diving into the beautiful and unpredictable world of sculptural art with multimedia artist, curator, and educator Rebecca Casement.
If you have ever felt the pressure to make your work perfectly stable and indestructible, Rebecca's approach will be a breath of fresh air. Operating from her studio in Michigan, she crafts affective abstract pieces using ceramics, textiles, and mixed media. Her journey is a testament to trusting the creative process, especially since she did not even discover her love for clay until taking a community college class on a whim at age 36.
Embracing the Breaking Point
Rebecca intentionally builds heavy, precarious clay structures with spindly legs that have a high likelihood of breaking in the kiln. Rather than seeing this as a failure, she views it as a profound metaphor. You can do everything right with the best intentions, but life still throws unexpected challenges your way. By allowing her work to be inherently fallible, she finds a beautiful parallel to the human experience.
The Shattered Sculpture
This open philosophy crystallized after a deeply personal incident in the studio. Rebecca had created a massive five-foot-tall piece representing herself and her two daughters. While experiencing a sudden bout of vertigo, she accidentally knocked it over, shattering it into unsalvageable pieces. Instead of attempting to glue it back together, she threw it away. That act of letting go allowed her to start creating from the heart rather than just making what felt safe or predictable.
Art as a Fluid Lifestyle
To avoid the physical burnout that often plagues creatives, Rebecca treats her art as a fluid lifestyle rather than a rigid job. Here is how she keeps the joy alive in her daily practice:
Moving naturally between her painting office, sculpture room, and ceramic garage based on how she feels.
Working in intuitive spurts rather than forcing all-day, exhausting studio sessions.
Quieting her inner critic by treating herself with the same gentle grace she offers her students at Michigan State University.
Carried Together
We also discussed her powerful upcoming collaboration, Carried Together. Rebecca handed over pieces of her past thesis work, which originally explored themes of abuse and reclaiming oneself, to 14 women artists. These creatives now have a year to alter the sculptures, exploring the concept of community and how women care for one another.
Listen to the full episode on your favorite streaming platform to hear the rest of our chat! Don't forget to join our Substack community for more articles, and if you are ready to get your own work seen, submit to our current open call, The Artist's World, juried by Marina Press Granger at createmagazine.com/call-for-art.
