Clay-ground: Jaffe’s distinctive work on display at UNLV gallery

Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2003 | 8:17 a.m.

It was inevitable. After lugging his clay teapots to craft shows up and down the East Coast, Jared Jaffe would be dubbed the "teapot artist."

The functional sculptures, celebrating the organic whimsy of Ugli fruit, gourds, morning glories and the like, were nabbed by collectors. Jaffe, barely into his 30s, was placed into a mold.

In an attempt to break from the image, the Philadelphia artist began creating clay Japanese floral arrangements, causing a stir at a craft show in Westchester, N.Y., when set alongside the teapots.

"People wanted to know where the all teapots were," Jaffe said, while sitting in his studio on the University of Nevada, Las Vegas campus.

Now a part-time pottery throwing instructor at UNLV, Jaffe, 33, has left the craft shows and teapots behind. He's created a new set of rules for his work.

Essentially, Jaffe said with a smile, "I made a conscious effort to do no more teapots."

"A Balancing Act," on display through Sunday at UNLV's Archie C. Grant Gallery, features Jaffe's recent work: abstract nonfunctional pieces designed to stretch the limits of the medium.

With vinelike legs, cone-shaped, round and cylindrical bodies, the pieces (similar to the teapots) are quirky and reflective of nature. Tension, harmony and balance are predominant themes. Each has its own distinctive personality.

"Stacked Cans" (or "Shoppers Worst Nightmare"), is composed of a can-shaped object pierced by a tripod of stark, slender legs. Piled precariously on top are three more cans. Each relies on another element to hold itself.

Another piece is a cone-shaped body supported by a trio of bent, angular and swirled legs mingling with each another. Another is two stocky halved columns leaning on each other for support but appearing as if they're falling away from one and other.

"The general idea is to push the material to suspend the object in space, to make things that are a little unnerving because of the vicarious balance," Jaffe said. "I am sort of pushing this material. It gives a little bit of a sense of danger, I guess. Unease, maybe."

Danger, yes. Jaffe can't promise the pieces will survive their construction, or successfully arrive at the exhibit hall. A rubber garbage can in his studio is a graveyard of broken pieces to be used for other means. Snapshots on the wall remind him of sculptures that once were -- even if for a few minutes.

"For every successful piece there are five that are not," Jaffe said.

Eventually, he said, "I've got to be realistic. I've got to consider shipping them if somebody buys them."

With a background in music, arts and sports, the graduate from the Philadelphia College of Fine Art and Design (now the University of the Arts), studied illustration in college before working seriously in clay.

Jaffe says he works through intuition and from sketches.

His move to Las Vegas provided Jaffe the opportunity to study with ceramicist and chair of UNLV's art department, Mark Burns. Jaffee, a graduate student, arrived in September and plans to teach three years at UNLV.

Jaffe said the dichotomies of Las Vegas -- "wealth and poverty, starkness and excess and growth and decay"-- materialize in his work.

No longer needing the craft shows to support himself, Jaffe is able to dabble. His next goal is to create handmade sculptures. The work in "A Balancing Act" was thrown on the wheel.

His teapots were a combination of both. Jaffe began making the teapots in his final year in college. Featured on his website, jaredjaffe.com, the teapots are molded after mushrooms, birds, pumpkins and snails.

"I like working within a set of limitations," Jaffed said. "I like giving myself a set of parameters."

With the teapots, he said, "I wanted something with more rules. They had to balance, pour, still have foot, lid, handle.

"Without the rules and limitations, I enjoy clay so much I would just do anything."

Besides, Jaffe said, "I've done the craft shows where I've sold the cups and mugs. I wanted to have more meaning in a piece."