meredith Host

bio

Meredith Host (she/her) received her BFA in Ceramics from Kansas City Art Institute in 2001 and her MFA in Ceramics from The Ohio State University in 2008. She was named one of the 2011 Emerging Artists for NCECA and Ceramics Monthly, and in 2016 was a Presenter at the Utilitarian Clay Symposium. Meredith has spent time at numerous ceramic residencies including Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts in Newcastle, ME, The Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, MT, Dresdner Porzellan Manufactory in Dresden, Germany, and West Virginia University through The Pottery Workshop in Jingdezhen, China. Currently, Meredith lives in Kansas City, MO, teaches workshops around the country, and is a founding member of the Kansas City Urban Potters.

artist statement

I am a collector of overlooked patterns, patterns you see on a daily basis. Every time I enter a restroom, my eyes immediately look to the toilet paper roll. If I have not seen this subtle debossed design before, I will take a few squares and place them in my pocket. I obsess about these found ubiquitous domestic patterns subtly quilted on the paper products we see, use, and throw away every day.

The prevalence of these dimpled decorations in our daily life renders them invisible, their utility questionable. We barely notice them and take them for granted. In this body of work, I reinterpret these motifs and transform them from something ephemeral into something permanent. Ultimately, I give these patterns greater visibility and celebrate their presence in the context of other domestic objects meant for daily use.