March 25 - 29, 2025 | public reception March 27 6-9pm | open Monday-Saturday 10am-4pm
Signed & Numbered, 2320 S W Temple St, Salt Lake City, UT 84115
“don’t be careful with me im normal” group show organized and curated by E.C. Comstock, featuring:
Ajmal Ahmad
Wesley Barnes
E .C. Comstock
Gabby Gawreluk
Olivia Gibb
Sean Lofton
Harry Malesovas
Heather Schroeder
Mayetta Steier
Ashley Bevington
Linda Christianson
Alysha Hill
Danny Price
Mary Rhein
Audra Smith
Em Spakoski
Brian Snapp
Janice Wallace
Kathryn Wingard
C
Care is a formative and (re)configuring force. As an essential means of navigating
crisis and preparing for an uncertain future, care work is increasingly underscored in the
present zeitgeist as a central tenet for community building and organizing. While navigating
the delicate and messy process of introducing real gestures of tenderness into clay studio
spaces, we ask, how can methods of giving care accommodate professional boundaries? In
what instances is care unable to be received? Does the clumsiness of caregiving undermine
its power? How can the rawness of asking for care be mitigated? Emerging artists unite in
this exhibition playfully titled, “don’t be careful with me i’m normal.” Together, they consider
the underexplored brittle, self-conscious, and abrasive vestiges of care[giving/taking]
alongside the presence of tenderness in mentor and colleague relationships within the
studio environment. Themes include notions of care given or received in unexpected forms,
care transmitted over space and time, and ceramics as a metaphorical tool for
communicating care. We hold space for the prickly resistance that can appear when care is
shown and the pain this resistance emerges from. The lines between community,
colleagues, friendship, and family are unclear within a medium that has a reputation for
being uniquely close-knit and richly historied. Across these ambiguities, It requires both
bravery and diligence to effectively nurture. As the tongue-in-cheek title implies, the included
work explores stoicism and forbearance as much as it does the yielding and gentle valences
of care and tenderness. Ceramic as a material is both fragile and enduring. Each of these
emerging artists have been chosen for embodying the fortitude necessary to be a rising
maker in the post-pandemic landscape, while generating sensitive and playful sculptural
work. Whether exploring the presence or absence of vulnerability, good humor abounds in
work which speaks with as much discernment as levity. Each member of the show invites an
artist who they’ve accepted tenderness from to present a piece alongside them. Rather than
mapping lineage or influence, the pairing of work in this way investigates the lateral,
reciprocal, and rhizomatic personal connections unfolding in clay. In doing so, we open up
wells of emotional intimacy and gratitude, some of which have never been verbalized. Within
these wells is a space to lay your head down, to receive affection, to be bolstered, formed,
and to reflect on who has tended to you.