Postwar Perspective: Jesse Albrecht and Jessica Putnam-Phillips

As an outgrowth of Jesse Albrecht and Ehren Tool’s “Occupation” of The Clay Studio’s Harrison Gallery during our 40-hour celebration, we continue our conversation about military service with an exhibition by Jesse Albrecht and Jessica Putnam-Phillips, who are both veterans of war. Each artist uses the ceramic vessel as both source material and canvas.

For Albrecht, early American folk pottery and crockery is a major point of reference. His rough-hewn forms perfectly compliment his raw, jagged drawings and texts. Conversely, the decorative European porcelain chargers and serving platters that Putnam-Phillips references work in opposition to her depictions of women in combat.

Politics, material culture, gender and the realities of war infuse all of the work in this exhibition in different ways. For Albrecht, the word “crock” is a direct reference to his own feelings about his war experience as a medic in the Iraq war attached to the 101st Airborne Division. Putnam-Phillips’ work is much more positive on the surface—her platters show images of powerful-looking female soldiers in combat gear. The layers of commentary in her work involving “service” ware and its attendant cultural meanings are thorny and personal.