My father was visiting a few weeks ago and he wanted to make a Nativity scene. Just to put this in context, my father is an atheist Jew. We used to have a family tradition of going out to eat on Christmas Eve with my aunt and uncle. My aunt, who is an ex-Catholic atheist, has an elaborate wooden Nativity scene. It even has a snake among the animals. We would go back to their house after dinner and somehow we started making a game of stealing the Baby Jesus and replacing it with something ridiculous. One year we made figures out wooden craft sticks (tongue depressors) with food attached to them with a glue gun, such as broccoli for hair. The tradition has continued and my father wanted to make figures out of clay to add to the collection of weird Nativity items.
My father made all of these except for the angel and the pig. Those are mine. I also painted them.
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Aberrant Ceramics is the artwork of Aaron Nosheny,
ceramic artist and potter in Tucson, Arizona.
I work in the medium of stoneware clay and make hand-built pottery, sculpture, hamsas, ornaments, masks, and a variety of other forms.
I’m a self-taught autistic artist working in my medium for over twenty years. I like monsters, insects, weird animals, body horror, folk horror, horror comedy, horror in general, Halloween decorations, fast food mascots, kitsch – all of these creep into my work, but there’s really no overarching theme.
I am in love with my medium. I love the process of frantically birthing clay monstrosities, subjecting them to an epic trial by fire, and sending them out into the world.