Chandra Beadleston

Bio

I am a Thai-American ceramicist and art educator, born and raised in Kansas City.

I have been a public school teacher for 25 years.  My professional work has been in both national and international exhibitions, including the International Orton Cone Box Show.  My porcelain artwork explores the overlaps of clay with fabric and paper and uses thin porcelain slabs covered in decorative layers of underglaze and mason stain.

My love of fabric and prints, the ways it wrinkles and folds, and the memories associated with it come from my grandma.  My grandmother, Alice, used to sew my sister and me matching outfits, blankets and dolls.  She showed us her love using that language.  I get a feeling of nostalgia looking back at the pictures and seeing the time and care that went into them. The hum of a sewing machine regulates me in the same way that rolling out a slab of clay does.  I roll out all of my slabs very thin.  They are all rolled out by hand, and each finished piece I make has healed me in a way I could not have predicted. Each time I open the kiln, it is with the same excitement and anticipation as Christmas morning.  

While children will grow out of their matching outfits, ceramics are forever.  That is one of the things I love most about it.  It is fragile but everlasting.  Ceramics is also the most fickle of the art mediums.  It lifts you up, then breaks your heart. Clay is something I will always keep coming back to, for it is the thing with which I have had one of the longest relationships.

Artist Statement

My vessel of choice for my art is a paper bag because it is so much more versatile than a cup or vase. Paper bags, like the ones I bring home from the grocery store or mall, can be used and reused for so many purposes. It is a great analogy for what my experience has been as a woman in today’s society, which is that a woman’s value is largely tied to what she does for others. Women, especially women of color, are expected to be multi-purpose and asked to adapt quickly. For both women and paper bags in American society, the more beautiful they are the more valuable they are considered and the more coveted they become. Bags can be filled with many other things. They can be torn down and used as wrapping. They can be flattened and stored away when you don’t want them to be seen or have no current use for them. I’m in the process of trying to unlearn this notion that my worth is tied to my tasks.