Margaret Boozer

Winter Landscape is made of porcelain and belongs to a larger body of ceramic wall works titled Land/Marks. The following is a catalog essay from Boozer’s 2004 exhibition of that work.As Margaret Boozer conceives of and makes her ceramic wall and floor works, she envisions them as physical drawings. In some works, she pounds, pulls, tears, cuts and breaks the clay. In others, she splashes slip (liquid clay) into a frame, handling it like paint. Boozer encourages the natural tendency of clay to crack and pull apart, creating negative drawing lines: think of a mud puddle drying out on a hot day. Kiln splits and cracks and other accidents…what is unintentional…further suggest linear elements. The final drawing is at once raw and visceral and reminiscent of aerial maps or charts.The title, Land/Marks, offers insight into the concepts and meaning of these works. Land can be as specific as the soil we walk on and cultivate or as general as the landscapes and landmasses that form the face of the earth. Marks are notations, signs, and symbols to make things readable and knowable. Landmarks are objects that mark a boundary of land or serve as a guide for travel. Assumed in any discussion of landmarks is the idea of mapping. In reduced scale, maps order and make sense of the land.Maps are metaphors in our culture for personal experiences, journeys, and passages. Maps are memory; they are a collection of marks by which we recall what we know. And it is in the idea of maps as memory that Margaret Boozer’s recent work reaches its fullest metaphorical flowering. Perhaps as we experience these physical drawings…these visceral maps…we are moved to remember our own landmarks.