Betty Woodman: Images of Function

By Layaan Roufai

Studio Institute Library & Archives Intern, Summer 2024

“It was also appeal­ing to me from a social sense, that I would be a potter and serve society in some way. Using beautiful handmade things would make people better. I still believe that. My work can have a social value in that having beautiful things around can remind people that the world is more than ugliness and violence.”¹

Betty Woodman believed in the ability of beautiful everyday items to improve one’s quality of life. Although she may not have initially considered herself an artist, nor had she any intention of becoming one, it seemed her personal philosophies would steer her in that direction anyway. From production ceramicist to sculptor, Woodman revolutionized the landscape of clay art. In her career spanning over six decades, multiplecities, and thousands of pieces, she toyed with the ideas of form and functionality. With clay as her medium and the vase as her muse, Woodman crafted vessels that served specific purposes before venturing to create works that while not traditionally functional, continued to be images of function,² all while never abandoning her dedication to crafting beauty.  

Understanding the practicality of her work, and aware of her need to make a living, much of Woodman’s early career, before her recognition as an artist, was in production pottery. Her primary material early on in her days of selling her work was stoneware clay. Its durability was best suited for her focus on production at the time, though she never felt compelled to stick with it forever.³  

Elements of sculpture are evident in Woodman’s early works produced in Italy. Betty’s Etruscan Inspired Vase (Fig 1) contains decorative elements not necessary to its functionality. This piece, as with many of her early functional works, was painted by her husband, George Woodman, who was following the tradition of classical Etruscan pottery painting. Thus, her realm of artistic expression was limited to the bounds of shape and had not yet ventured to color. This vase takes on a shape that, while remaining true to its name, hints at something more. The texture is reminiscent of Italian architecture and the historical reference to Etruscan pottery is so evident that one could mistake her piece for a historical artifact. With this work, she maintains her relationship with stoneware and focuses on functionality, but she clearly has unique ideas on form. In her time in Italy, Woodman’s intent was not solely to create pots to sell. She both found Italians less enthusiastic about buying her works, but also wanted to use her time there for experimentation.⁴ Being free from the constraints of selling her work, Woodman had the room to slow down and explore, and inevitably developed as a sculptor.

Her use of earthenware was driven by her environment. Initially, Woodman was hesitant to implement earthenware into her pottery for fear of borrowing too much from her Etruscan influences, instead choosing to merge her stoneware medium with the tradition of majolica. On one of her many bi-annual voyages to Italy, she realized the absurdity of struggling to work with stoneware, a material foreign to Italy, when she was surrounded by workable Italian clay. Earthenware, she found to be a softer and porous material, providing her with the flexibility that stoneware lacked.⁵ Her beginning to work with this material signified her departure from the confining standards of traditional pottery and venture into the sculptural aspect of ceramics.

Drawing influence from the steps involved in creating a vase, she begins to expand the boundaries of her pieces. On the inspiration behind her wall vase, she explains, “It evolved from observing my process. With clay, you make parts, you make a vase. If you want handles, you make them and stick them to the vase. So instead of putting handles on the vase, I put them on the wall.”⁶ A vase comes together in parts, however, after producing these parts, the ceramicist is at liberty for where to place them. Betty’s decisions in this regard are a testament to her artistic prowess.

Woodman’s artistic liberties are highlighted in her 1980s Wall Vase (Fig 2).  By then, George had long since ceased painting her works, allowing her to view them as canvases in their entirety and explore both form and color. This piece is a playful conversation on the idea of what it means for a piece to be functional. As she described, the vase handles are placed against the wall instead of on the vase's body. Positioned there, the handles serve no practical purpose but add to the illusion of a vase. The one actual functional aspect of the piece is hidden behind a two-dimensional image of a vase. When observed at from the “front,” the piece looks like picture of a vase. But looking from the side, or the “back,” reveals the literal function of the piece.

Continuing to play with color and form, Woodman explores spatial boundaries, too. As she paired her vases with two-dimensional architectural wall pieces, the art began to include the space surrounding it, placing the vessel in an environment of its own. With her newfound interest in painting, she begins to incorporate canvas into her wall pieces. In many of her works of this time, a vessel or silhouette of a vessel is often accompanied by a painted canvas featuring negative space to outline the pot. In some, she features fully sized painted wall-like canvases, that can either stand alone or act as a backdrop for other pieces.

In Garden Wall #2, Woodman combines sculpture, ceramics, and painting to create a setting for her vessel. The paint on the vase and the wall implies a continuous relationship between the objects. The vase is part of the background, while also standing on its own. It protrudes like a three-dimensional piece, despite being only the silhouette of a vase from the “front” perspective. Once again, the piece's functional aspect, the real vase, lies hidden between the image of the vase wall. In doing this, Woodman challenges the viewers’ perception as the vase enters and leaves the second and third dimensions. The negative space between the two pieces of the canvas implies the existence of a vase. With or without the physical piece, the idea of a vessel remains the subject of her work.

“I’ve never done simple things with my pots.”⁷ In observing Woodman’s work from her career as a production potter, to her days as an internationally renowned ceramic sculptor, this rings true. Artistic acclaim came for Woodman relatively late in her career. However, she consistently approached ceramics intending to make things that were nice to look at, whether they sit on a kitchen counter or an exhibition at MoMA. Although she was aware that with her growing recognition in the fine arts, buyers of her work would be hesitant to use them for their practical purposes, she never stopped nodding to functionality. If anything, this contradiction drove her creativity further and she found grander ways of crafting images of function.